


Like Real People Do

by Applesap



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Angst, Canon-Typical Powers, Canon-Typical Worms, Dragon!Alice "Daisy" Tonner, Dragon!Jon, Enemies to Friends, Everybody Lives, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Kate Bush, Magic, Manipulation, Melodrama, Minor depictions of gore, One-Sided Crush, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Tragic Comedy, Trans Character, Trans Sasha James, Unreliable Narrator, Urban Fantasy, but I don't know what is burning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 104,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesap/pseuds/Applesap
Summary: Martin Blackwood couldn't complain too much about his job as an archival assistant for a magic-researching institute. His boss might be a bit cranky, his coworkers and himself have little experience with what being an archival assistant actually entails, and there's a dragon lurking in the archives, but at least the pay is-! oh, well.--Dragon!Jon (and others) au loosely inspired by artefact_storage's dragon au.
Relationships: Helen | The Distortion & Sasha James, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 338
Kudos: 575





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, I saw there was a dragon!Jon au and I thought, now's my chance to combine my favorite things: dragons, talking dragons, oh-my-god-that-person-is-a-dragon situations, and dragons that hoard things.  
> 

The Magnus Institute was well known only amongst the people who worked there and the students who frequented it. For some reason, nobody liked to think much about the sinister sides of the arcane when those forces had always lived peacefully alongside humans for as far as most could tell. People dreaded to think about that power turning against them, and the Magnus Institute was a painful reminder that accidents did happen, power corrupted, and evil always persisted.

So when Martin applied for a job as an archival assistant, it was really a last attempt spurred on by financial desperation. Really, the pay wasn’t even that good, though that didn’t mean his heart hadn’t leapt with joy when he got that acceptance call. At least he didn’t lie about his ability to use magic this time. That hadn’t gone over well previously. No, this time he just lied about his degree in parapsychology, which went over fine enough.

The Institute was a centuries old building brimming with knowledge about the arcane, filled with old wizards and magicians and the occasional witch reading away at ancient tomes. There were college students slaving away at their theses, whom Martin had to gently remind that they needed to return the cases back to the archives at some point that day. Collectors and curators gathered the rarest and most dangerous of data from all over the world, which would then be mulled over and studied in the building’s research facilities and libraries by scholars and students until they presumably dropped dead. Martin was pretty sure he never saw some of them leave, their beards and nails growing longer and longer with every written word absorbed.

And then there were the archives, with its single office, artefact storage, the statement and break room, and the rows upon rows of unbroken history tucked away in the darkest rooms in the heart of the Institute.

Which included Martin’s odd boss, who never even bothered to introduce himself and was so buried in work you could scarcely see his head pop out of the piles of files and boxes. Not even to take a breather in the break room, or give Sasha or Tim or Martin a new address to inquire about one thing or the other. If Mr. Bouchard hadn’t mentioned Jonathan Sims in the interview Martin seriously doubted he would have ever gotten to know the man’s name. 

Today was the rare occasion Martin got to see his boss’ face. His large bureau was mostly cleared of the usual mess, making room for a heavy-looking book with brown blotted pages, which he studied intently. It seemed old, and Jon carelessly fingered it like his nails weren’t about to rip apart every single thread in those papers. His nose was all but pressed up against it, and his dark, short-cropped hair hung loose over his eyebrows as he read. His stare was intense. 

“Ehrm,” Martin tried hesitantly, announcing his arrival so he wouldn’t spook Jon. “You wanted me to give you these statements?”

Eyes unmoving and unblinking, Jon halted his reading like a deer caught in headlights. 

“The dragons have use for these old tomes,” Jon said, not looking up towards him. Martin wasn’t quite sure what ‘tomes’ -plural- he was referring to. “We must guard them.”

“Oh, ok," Martin said dumbly, wondering if he could come in.

Yeah, how do you reply to that? Honestly, Jon always said strange stuff, and not just when he was lost in thought. At this point Martin was pretty sure he was either an ancient magic user of some sort, or just plain antisocial and weird. He always wore a thick heavy coat indoors too.

Jon shook his head out of the weird trance he had found himself in, then snapped his head up towards Martin, frown as persistent in his forehead as it ever was when he looked at him.

“Did you digitize them? Or do I have to wait for them much longer.”

The second sentence wasn’t a question as much as it was an accusation. 

“Y-yes, I did. This time…” Martin had cursed himself for being so sloppy in the first couple of days he worked here. He couldn’t let anyone know he had zero experience in data processing, much less his boss. It didn’t help that Jon never gave directions either, so he had to rely on Sasha’s kindness to give him an inkling of what to do. 

Jon nodded and shoved the giant book just a couple of centimetres to the side, as if that made any more space for the box in Martin’s hands. Taking the hint, Martin entered his office and scuttled over to his desk.

“Right.” Martin gently put the box on the table, pulled out the folders, and let them drop onto the already quite high stack of “In”, letting them balance precariously on top. 

“Thank you, Martin." Jon picked something off of the table and put it in his mouth. "Off you go.” He flicked the stiff brown page and resumed reading, chewing mindfully on his food.

Not wanting to bother him any longer with his loitering, Martin quickly headed off. Just as he closed the door, he heard Jon mumble quietly to himself. “Hm. Distasteful rubbish."

And that was about the amount of interaction he got with his boss every day.

It was very easy to get lost in archiving work. There was always something to cross-reference, old or foreign languages to translate, handwriting to identify, numbers to neatly line up in excel. When Martin finally looked up from his work after Sasha and Tim had said their goodbyes hours ago, he found that even old Gregorius the Grudgeholder had fled the library in search for rest (probably a casket to either die in or set aflame to rise from its ashes, depending on what book the wizard had been reading). 

Martin would have to do a final round of check up before he went as well. He collected a box of arcane fire accidents from the mid 80's, carelessly discarded and left unreturned on a long library table by a student from the nearby college, and made his last trip to the archives downstairs. 

The light was still on in Jon’s office, which wasn’t very surprising. Martin was pretty sure the man pulled through a lot of long days, always the first one to come, last one to leave. 

It worried him though, just a little bit. That kind of level of workaholic wasn’t healthy.

Martin wished Jon would come to the break room more often to get his tea instead of waiting for Martin to provide him so he could finally sip it behind his desk, filing and reading away. He might sit next to Martin as he told him about his day beyond what he did for work. Relax instead of worry so much about what might go wrong or files going missing or students complaining. Have his hair swept backwards in that neat way he has when he arrived at work every morning, instead of the frenzied mess it becomes halfway through the day. Ponder a crossword puzzle instead of illegible handwriting from a century ago.

Martin groaned in frustration. He was just an assistant! He couldn’t be having those kinds of thoughts about his boss. His work was his own. Trying to drag him away was useless anyway, since Jon never listened to him.

Jon’s office door was ajar, and peeking through he found the room empty. He reckoned Jon must be working in the archives then, since he didn’t look like the type of person who forgot to lock his room for whatever reason. Much too paranoid for that. Even the weird second door in his office was always bolted shut, just like it was now from what he could see. He wondered where it lead to, with his office being a strange in-between room.

Since the archives was where Martin was headed anyway, he might as well say goodbye. 

From beyond the large heavy doors of the archives, there was a shuffle, startling Martin for a second before collecting himself. Must be Jon.

As he pushed a door open with his shoulder, he was immediately plunged into that familiar darkness. The archives were dark this time of the night, with scarcely any lamps illuminating the rows of books and boxes. 

The deeper you looked into the room, the blacker it got, and with whatever secrets the Institute hosted, Martin was not about to push his luck and step too much into that void if he could help it. Thankfully the files he held were recent, so he didn’t have to venture too much towards the shadows. Feeling a bit apprehensive, Martin turned on the lights from the first row. 

And then he saw it. 

Perched on top of the sturdy wooden shelves, there sat a sleek, dark creature, eyeing him with yellow eyes and a stare so intense that Martin might just die if he made even one sudden move. A serpentine head swirling off into a long tail hanging off the side of the shelf, four horns swept backwards on the crown of its head, and two sharp taloned claws clutching the wood it sat on.

A dragon. 

“Oh my god,” Martin breathed, clutching the box in his hands like a lifeline as his body turned limp. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

The dragon eyed him almost with boredom, like it knows it would get him in a hot second if he didn’t turn around and run out of the door and-

“Calm down, Martin,” the voice of Jon said. “It’s just me.”

Jon! Oh god, he was still back there and he couldn’t see the dragon and oh god, oh god, he’s probably stuck there behind the shelves and he doesn’t even know it’s there oh god, oh Christ.

“Jon?” he whispered feverishly, eyes locked on the dragon in case it made a sudden move. “Is that you? Don’t move, and don’t panic, but there’s a dragon.”

“Yes Martin, I’m quite aware.”

Wait. 

Jon sounded very close by. So close, in fact, he should be standing right in front of him. In fact right where the dragon sat upon the shelf, wordlessly moving its maw as if speaking- 

“Holy Christ! Jon, is that _YOU_?”

The dragon shifted its weight to move downwards, startling Martin so bad he bumped into the desk behind him, dropping the box of files onto the floor. “Damnit, Martin,” the dragon cursed, sounding disappointed. It could be lying to him. It could have already eaten Jon and taken his voice and be deceiving Martin with it.

“Oh, geez.” Martin was proper hyperventilating at this point, chest heaving as he stared at the beast, its eyes piercing right through him with a hunger that told him to _run_. “Sorry ‘bout that. D-don’t come any closer please.”

But the dragon already jumped off the shelf elegantly and landed without barely a sound of its talons clicking on the wooden floor, its supple form hypnotizing Martin’s rapidly darkening vision with swirls of brown and purple, dragging long, wicked sharp looking wings behind it. It didn’t look particularly big, like the monster dragons he saw on the telly or read about in books, but that hardly mattered to Martin’s galloping heart.

Did the room become darker? Where was the table - wasn’t it behind him? Where should he go. If he could make it at least out of the door he would be fine. He should really sit down and- 

The creature opened its mouth again, teeth long and glistening. “Don’t faint- Ah, drat.”

The light came back to him slowly, like pinpricks poking through the centre of his vision. Christ. Was he laying on the floor? Yes. Propped up against the desk, with Jon hovering just inches from his face, expression completely unamused and unworried, more like the whole ordeal was quite bothersome. 

“That you, Jon?” Martin said, head swirling and body limp. His face contorted with a sadness he couldn’t place, and he hoped he hadn’t cried in front of his boss. 

Jon sighed. “Yes, Martin. It is me.”

“There was a dragon,” Martin stated dumbly.

“Still is, Martin.” Jon stared as he hunched over him without actually doing anything to help. This close by, he could see the leather details on the creases of his coat he wore. It was a brown with a purple shimmer over the thick, flattened scales, and though worn, almost looked alive this up close.

“You’re a dragon.”

Jon rolled his eyes, plainly done with this conversation. “Let’s get you to the break room.”

Martin couldn’t do anything but nod. Jon lifted him up with some effort, and being smaller than Martin was he let him use his shoulder for support, a weak arm around his side. 

“I’m doing okay now,” Martin said once he was sat down. Then he looked up at Jon, who eyed him with crossed arms as if angry. “You’re a dragon,” Martin repeated.

“YES, Martin. You’ve said that already. Honestly I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised. It’s not like I did anything to hide it from you.”

“Well it wasn’t exactly in the job description!”

“It wasn’t?” Jon looked puzzled as he sat down on the table. Martin winced. Though he tried to clean up behind himself, the break room wasn’t exactly cleaned that often by the others. Jon’s coat would get dirty. “Hm. Another one of Elias’ little jokes, then.”

“Mr. Bouchard knows about you too?”

“Of course. He’s the one who- ah, well, never mind that.”

Jon looked rather annoyed. Martin hoped it was because of Mr. Bouchard, not him.

“Ok so…” He shook his head. He still had questions, and despite the daggers Jon was shooting he really needed some answers. “Dragon. You. Right. Ehh, how?”

Despite working for the Institute, Martin didn’t have much experience with dragons except for the occasional pet or pest. He usually had to follow up leads on metadata and fact-checking, which required a lot more talking with humans about family and photo albums and scouring the Institute’s mailing lists for sources than researching dragon-related crimes and statements.

He knew about some species. Shapeshifting dragons weren’t unheard of, but they usually weren’t the sort you’d want to come across. The Twisting Deceits especially were truthful only in that they were capricious, and obscured their own appearances to trick humans into trusting them. If Jon was such a dragon, Martin wasn’t sure if he was going to keep on working for the Magnus Institute, or even leave the room alive.

“Well. As a dragon, I can use magic, of course.”

Jon eyed him lazily, a hand propped up on the dirty table and chin leaning on his shoulder, not bothering to further explain. Obfuscation of the truth, Martin had to keep an eye out.

“That was it? End explanation?” He was unimpressed but wary.

“Martin, I’m not about to blow the secrets we have been keeping for millennia to a mere archival assistant. If you really want to know, I suggest you dig into the library and do your own research into the matter.”

“Right.” Of course not. Dragon or not, to Jon Martin was just a dumb assistant who shouldn’t pry in the matters of bloody _dragons_. “So… What are you doing in the archives?”

Jon gave him a dumb look. “I work here, Martin.”

“So that’s really what you’re here for?” Jon might be lying to him. He might be here to kill him and Sasha and Tim and god what if he transformed right now in front of him and bit his face off. 

But he hadn’t, had he? He was just calmly talking to him. 

“Just archiving?”

Jon considered it. “I… You know dragons hoard, don’t you.”

Martin shrugged. He never really thought about it, assumed it was all about gold and jewellery and such. “I guess.”

“The archives are my hoard. I protect them, in ways you and Sasha and Tim can’t. I process the data and file them of course, but I also shield them from others who might have less… Might not have the best interest at heart for them. The archive is mine and mine alone.”

“Oh. That’s pretty neat.”

Jon raised his eyebrows dubiously, then for the first time Martin knew him, flustered. “Yes, well… You’re feeling better? We’ll put you on the tube then.”

Martin played with an old cup left on the table, thinking he could really go for some tea right now. But like usual Jon didn’t hide the fact that he wanted Martin out of his sight, so he sighed and stood up from the chair.

“Bye,” Jon said.

“Yeah, bye,” Martin replied, picking up the cup and putting it in the dishwasher. Jon merely remained seated on the corner of the table, watching him go with his big brown eyes. 

Would he stay in the archives, since the archives were his hoard? Or did he have his own place to return to after work. Martin couldn’t imagine living in the Institute. It wasn’t exactly cosy, and he never liked the spooky atmosphere that seemed to hang in the building, like there were more creatures hiding behind the corners of the old stone pillars of the library, or hidden in the illustrations of the stained glass windows and woven tapestries. Or those darkened hallways in the rows of the archives.

Martin said his goodbye again, now actually making his way out of the door.

He would ask him tomorrow, if Jon was up for it. But first, the train home, tea, and off to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon has some explaining to do.

Obviously Jon had to straighten things out with his assistants. 

Honestly, he couldn’t believe Elias would pull such a stunt. It was cruel, really, for both parties involved. Not to mention the hard part, breaking the bad news to his crew which would surely invite a flood of awkwardness and ignorance, had been inconsiderately handed over to him. 

Elias knew the history with his old assistants, their resentment and fear towards him which made it often impossible for both sides to work with or even trust each other. Their struggle to free themselves from their jobs. The long waiting periods in between the new helps, reluctantly accepted by an incompetent brave soul who wouldn’t know thirteenth century Gothic from the heights of the Baroque era if it dropped them on the head.

They feared him. They always did. Despite his best efforts to come across as non-threatening to humans, going as far as changing his appearance for them so they would be put at ease while they worked for him. It rarely worked, of course. At the end of the day he still left them to bare his teeth and spread his wings.

They knew what he hid underneath his leather coat and false skin. And those that weren’t afraid treated him as a novelty, which was flattering at first, but wore off fairly quick. There were only so many kidnap attempts he could stand, and the ransom they demanded from the Institute was frankly insulting. 

Jon did not see the benefits of not telling the new hires of his status as a magical creature. If they knew from the start, they could prepare themselves, whatever that meant. Maybe they started stocking up on pickaxes, once they found out they would be working for a dragon. And perhaps they got some books from the library to read up on the different species. Then they would learn that Beholdings hardly harmed or ate anyone, and would never in a lifetime grow as big as those of the Vast, or spontaneously catch fire like the Desolations. 

Or would they take their jobs a little bit more seriously, knowing that their boss could potentially bite their heads off? Jon hoped so.

Martin was late. 

He had his little team of archivists assembled around his desk. Sasha had sat down at first, but since there was only one chair and she seemed awkward being the one to sit while Tim stood behind her as they waited, she volunteered to get more chairs from the archives. So now his office was packed with chairs, as if this day couldn’t get any worse. 

They should’ve met in the archival room. There were chairs there, and a table they could put between Jon and themselves. And it had more space in case his assistants started throwing things at him and he needed to run away quickly.

It would be a shame if they were afraid. He quite liked Sasha already, and Tim to a certain extent. He was level headed and critical, despite his casual approach to literally anything unattached to the floor. 

Knocking on his office door, Martin announced his tardiness.

Jon sighed. “Come in, Martin.”

As Martin made his way in, befuddled and slow, Jon supposed he couldn’t really blame him. Martin had quite a shock yesterday evening. _Even though it had just been_ him _and he never acted any different in dragon form,_ a bitter part of his brain provided. Or perhaps those feelings have been there since the start. The feeling of wrongness Jon must’ve given off somehow, and Martin had always seen through it. Is that why he was so incompetent in his work? Did Jon distract him?

“Take a seat. I’m sure you can guess what this is about.”

Martin nodded gravely as he took his place next to Tim, who sat spread-legged and cross-armed in the middle, anticipating what his boss could possibly have gathered them all in his office for. 

“Yeah. I wonder,” Tim sing-songed.

Ignoring him, Jon took a deep breath, already dreading the next words out of his mouth. 

“It has come to my attention that there has been some confusion about my status as a human being. I would like to clear that up today, please. So, I’m not. I am terribly sorry about this. You should have been told, this is very unprofessional, and you’ll be happy to know I will have a strong word with Elias about this misunderstanding, thank you.”

And breathe out, support yourself on the table for stability, and assess the situation.

That’s the most words they’ve ever gotten out of him. Martin looked so damned guilty for some reason, unable to meet Jon’s eyes and looking instead intently at a stack of papers on his desk, hands clenched on his knees, quietly nodding to Jon’s words like it was all inevitable and they were gonna die soon anyway. Tim and Sasha merely gave each other a comical look. 

Then Sasha squinted her eyes. “Wizard or warlock?”

“Pardon me?” That was not the reply Jon expected. Was she asking him what he was, or if he was cursed by one?

“Are you a wizard or a warlock?” She pouted curiously, creating a dimple on one side of her cheek. “It’s important.” 

“Like hell it is.” This was Tim. “Pay up, James.”

“No! And it depends on if he’s evil too-”

Oh, so they placed bets on whether he was some antisocial weirdo or inhuman. What an incredible waste of anxiety on his part. “No, no, no. Stop. None of that. Stop trading money, you guys. I’m not either of those.”

Tim grinned uncertainly, a little more on edge as he shifted in his seat. “Then what-”

“He’s a dragon!” Martin burst, keeling over like he got sick keeping in the mystery. It was a proper squeal, squeezed out of him. He held his forehead in his hand and shook his head despondent, red as a beet, and let out a dry sob. “Oh, god!”

Tim and Sasha went quiet for a moment, disbelief evident on their faces. Whipping her head at Jon, Sasha stared at him with a mesmerized expression, a silent incredulous laugh etched onto her face. Her round glasses magnified her eyes even more. 

But Tim had a different sort of look. A dawning realisation passed onto his face once he realized Jon was not joking. Once he did, he straightened up, giving him a stare so piercing it made even Jon blink. 

“Get off of it…” he said softly.

“God, I’m sorry, I just,” Martin said, holding a hand in front of his mouth, and Jon could see he was smiling by the rise of his cheeks, as if showing his teeth would aggravate the dragon. His chest heaved, though not as worryingly as yesterday. “It’s all a bit exciting.”

Jon hoped that exciting was all that it was. That they could get this over with as soon as possible without much incident.

“No.” Tim stood up with a groan of his chair. Jon bit the inside of his lip as he watched him take an uncertain stance while firing daggers in his direction, shaking his head.

This was getting out of hand quickly. Whatever fantasies formed into Tim’s head they had to be distilled by truth. If Jon remained silent Tim would get the wrong idea. “Yes, it’s true. Martin saw me yesterday evening and tipped me off to the fact that none of you were informed. Gave him quite an unjustified shock.” He had to reassure all of them that they would be safe here. That he wouldn’t try anything. “I might be a dragon, but that doesn’t have to mean that-”

“Are you gonna keep us here, too? Just like my brother? Make us dance till our feet bleed and we drop dead so you can guzzle us up?”

Jon couldn’t help it. There was history behind those words. A dull throb rose behind his eyes, his disguise painfully subduing the hunger in him. He could almost taste the fear the other was giving off. If only he could flick his tongue and reach out. 

Tim knew then. He knew what Jon was.

“Dancing?” Martin said, eyes widening and bringing Jon out of his stupor. “Bloody hell, that’s morbid. I can’t really dance.”

Jon flinched, spell broken.

He held his hands up as he took a step back. The more distance, the better. “Tim, no. I-I don’t do that sort of thing. I’m quite harmless-”

“Yeah, sure. Harmless like a little pet, aren’t you? Walking and talking, smart enough to pretend to be a human. What else can you do? You use magic? Set us on fire? Force us to stay here in the archives till we starve?”

Sasha gasped loudly. “Jon, you can’t do that! I’ve got krav maga on Thursdays.” 

“CHRIST, Sasha! Read the room, will you?” Tim looked ready to jump, twitching like a trapped animal, which in a certain sense he thought he was. A sheep literally in the lion’s den.

“‘Scuse me, Tim. I AM reading the room. And you’re being a dick. Look at him. Has he ever hurt you before? You’ve been here a week and a half and you’ve seen him, what? A total of 2 hours combined? Maybe? Don’t you think he would’ve eaten you already if he wanted to? Get over yourself.”

“You-!” Tim gritted his teeth, trying his best not to bark at her. Some battles couldn’t be fought, especially if the other person was Sasha. He took a deep breath and formulated his words carefully. “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know the things they can do.”

Tim was right. Not all of them lashed out as passionately and evidently as Desolations. There were those that toyed with their prey and could drag out the torture over an entire human lifetime, patiently waiting. Some collected their victims like Jon collected his books, meticulously and not without help. And then there were those, like the monster from Tim’s past, who danced with them until they could no more.

There were services dedicated to eradicating creatures like him, and with good reason. Sasha couldn’t be ignorant of that. Even Jon had tricks he’d rather not show his assistants.

“Maybe I don’t,” Sasha said, her expression softening. “But I don’t think we’ve got the full picture here.”

“I think so too,” Martin piped up, to Jon’s surprise. No longer trembling, his panic seemed to have cleared up, although he still grinned madly with his hand half-heartedly covering his mouth. “You’re a Beholding, aren’t you? I, uhm. I read some stuff online. Pretty rare as well, apparently.”

“That’s it. I’m done.” Tim grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and dressed himself. “Have fun getting eaten by our boss, you two. I’m out.” He saluted.

Jon frowned. 

Now, hold on. He couldn’t _leave_. Of course he was allowed to be mad, scared even, but he couldn’t simply leave him without receiving the full picture. Without Jon explaining himself.

“Tim, please! You should at least know that-”

“No,” he said, adjusting the collar of his coat. “You’re not putting _any_ thoughts into my head. I’m going, and if you’re really that ‘kind-hearted of a dragon’, you’ll let me.”

“Tim-”

“No.”

Jon recoiled. If he tried to apprehend Tim, he would only escalate the situation, but the nagging voice in the back of his head told him that if Tim walked out of that door right now Jon would never see him back in the archives again. He would lose him. And he’d gotten so attached to him.

True to his word, Jon allowed him to storm out of the room.

There were still Sasha and Martin. Focus on that. 

“Anyone else wish to leave?”

Their head shakes were unanimous, like two reverse bobble heads. 

They sat quietly, obviously burning with questions as their brimming eyes peered through him. Martin glanced at the door, and Jon tried hard not to think too much of it. The tension in his office was palpable, so none of them said a word until Tim’s words could no longer be felt in their heartbeats. 

It was Sasha who spoke first. “Are you okay?”

Okay? 

Jon scoffed at that. He rubbed the back of his neck. 

“I…,” he began. _I will be_. “This is not about me. I brought you here to be candid about the situation.”

He still hovered over his desk, a pretence of command. Maybe it would be wise for him to sit down. Air pressed from his lungs as he sank back into his chair, his human legs painfully weak with tension. Hands outstretched, he clutched his desk, nails digging into the metal, wishing he could lose all of his clothes and run like a mad dog through the archives. He didn’t even need to be in his dragon form for it.

“He’ll come back,” Martin said. “I’m sure of it. He’s good at his job and -” he rubbed his cheek, slightly stubbled, “- he’ll come around.”

Jon nodded at that, though hardly believed it. 

“Jon.” Sasha leaned in, placing her hand on the desk because touching him would require too much contact. “This isn’t a situation. It’s just you.”

Jon smiled wryly. It was a sweet sentiment, but one he could do little with. 

“Quite. And because I am what I am, I made Tim run out the door.” Jon didn’t need Sasha’s empathy. At least one of them storming off in fear was expected, though it was such a shame it had to be Tim. There was something to be said about his techniques, but Tim could get information out of people like no other before him. Very effective. Losing him almost physically hurt, the throbbing of his brain and the itch in his legs telling him to give chase and bring him back to the archives. “I am well aware of the sort of reactions my true form elicits from others.”

“But you haven’t even shown us!” Sasha defied with a slight hint of a whine. “And he knows there's tons of dragons who never cause any trouble. My cousin told me she's been working with one for like two years now and she's never had any problem with them. Tim had no right to say those things to you.”

Perhaps not, but Jon couldn’t fault him for it. And regarding her cousin… Well, he was glad, he supposed, that there was at least one person like him out there who could shape the view of a young woman like Sasha James to be an inclusive and open one. Hearing Sasha trying to comfort him, he couldn't say it didn't make him feel more at ease.

“Don’t worry about it, Sasha. I was prepared for such a reaction. It’s not every day your boss announces he’s a dragon, after all.”

Martin looked away, hands rubbing together with nervousness. 

"Right," he began, unable to fully meet Jon's eyes as he shifted his gaze around him. "Speaking of bad reactions, I… I'm sorry, Jon. I don't know why I did it, but fainting was such an overreaction and I can't believe I panicked as much as I did and I'm sorry and I should have, uhm, believed you when you said it was just you instead of trying to back away. Well, I guess I did believe it was you, it's just- No. No excuses. I knew it was you, and I was still afraid. I'm so sorry for that."

Martin looked at him now, eyes pleading but hardly looking as despondent as they did when he came in. So that must've been what he had cropped up in his chest, making him spill Jon's truth with so much despair you'd think he announced the end of the world. 

"Martin," Jon said, grateful for his apology, though he shouldn't have bothered with it. His reaction was warranted! "You were quite polite when you fainted."

"Oh? Well, that's uhh, good." He was silent for a moment. “I was so ashamed of being so scared, for thinking you would hurt me. I almost didn't want to come in today because I was scared of what you would think when you saw me being so scared. That's what Beholdings do, isn’t it? Reading my mind?”

“Not quite. I can’t read your mind exactly."

“Really? Huh. The internet said you could.” 

“Well, then it’s wrong." Blasted internet. Sure it was faster than going around the archives to find what he needed and he could sink into the information like a warm bath, but the amount of misinformation spread like wildfire through ignorance had him clawing his scales out and snarling at the screen sometimes. "Besides, this form dulls those powers a fair amount. You won't have to worry about being known.”

Especially since he kept his eyes wide shut.

“Will you show us?” Sasha asked, looking a little bit expectant. "I'm getting curious about what you look like now."

He had thought about it, simply shrugging off his coat and revealing himself in his full glory to his assistants. He thought better of it. 

“No, I will not,” he said with a hint of a blush. “At least not my transformation. Reverting back into a dragon requires me to lose my pants, lest they shred into pieces because of my tail, and from experience humans aren’t too fond of nudity. Especially that of their boss, I imagine.”

At the mention of a tail, Sasha’s expression got suspiciously excited, as if the reality of the situation had finally sunken in now that she knew her boss had a tail.

“B-but I’ve seen you without clothes!” Martin said, unhelpfully. It made Sasha burst out in laughter, and Martin blushed furiously.

“Don’t remind me, Martin.” He wrung his hand over his face, a decidedly human gesture. He needed them back at work. The limits of social interaction with his co-workers had been reached. 

“Well now I just think you’re lying,” Sasha said with a glint in her eyes. God, what did she want from him? To drive him mad? “Should I just blindly believe this?”

“I did see him, uhm, naked. As a dragon though.”

“What!”

“I mean, I didn’t really mind? I mean, I was too, erm, spooked to be really thinking about it I guess. I mean he was a dragon. You wouldn't expect them to wear clothes, right?” A horrified realisation crossed his face. "Oh god, Jon you were wearing clothes when you brought me to the break room, right?"

Surely Martin hadn't been too out of it not to realise whether or not he wore clothes. He had in fact left Martin passed out on the floor as he scuttered away to get them fixed before he woke up. Like he said, being nude would only worsen the situation.

"Yes, Martin. I wasn't about to shock you a second time." Jon was too exhausted for this conversation. It didn't seem likely they would ask any interesting questions. “I think we’re done here.” 

He rubbed his eyebrows and pulled his agenda from the side of the desk in front of him, going over today's notes. He’d gotten a digital one on his laptop, but he was so terribly clumsy with them so he preferred writing his schedule down as well. Tim's little task begged him to ignore it. “Sasha, you were busy with that case from ‘93 of the missing husband. Why don’t you head on off to that address you found.”

Sasha gave him a last expectant look, shoulders hunched and eyes as bright as brown could be. 

“Alright, boss,” she said when he didn’t receive what she telepathically sent into his brain, and stood up from her chair. 

“And you, Martin.” Martin perked up. "Any further questions?"

Good lord, he hoped not.

"Oh, yeah. Tons, actually. But frankly, I would just like to work right now, if that's okay with you."

Jon nodded curtly and thankful.

"Make that two of us," Sasha said. "PHEW, what an emotional rollercoaster! See you later, guys!"

“Perhaps you will see me,” he said with the hint of a promise in his voice.

“I’ll keep you to that!” Grinning, she stepped out of his office. Martin followed suit, leaving Jon blissfully alone in his office.

To mull about the loss of Tim.

He better come back tomorrow. He hoped he would. He liked having them all in the archives. It felt right. Him, his books and artefacts and assistants who gathered the data for him, all working together like a good hoard. He couldn't think about it like that too much. He had to allow them to leave as they pleased. This was merely their job, not their life as it had been for half of Jon's existence.

He really didn't want to send for Tim. His obsession could take a back seat for once.

Sasha did see him at the end of the day. 

Sasha, being as tall as she was, made Jon feel so much smaller. He was no taller than a Labrador, and if he were to stand on his two hind legs, wouldn't reach higher than her chin just like in human form. His long neck gave him some leeway.

She remarked on the shirt and sweater that he insisted on wearing, saying that pants would probably work better if he didn't want to feel nude. He shot back that he didn't wear clothes for his own comfort, but so that his human assistants wouldn't feel embarrassed. (And because his pants weren't tailored to his tail.)

Sasha laughed. He was a dragon, he could do whatever he wanted.

He supposed that was right.

So it was of his own volition that he allowed Sasha to hold his downwards snout in her hands, letting her rub the supple scales under his chin and scratch the area around his horns until they burned with that good itch her short nails gave. Just this once, he told himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stupid tim, making this chapter unfunny and dramatic.  
> Also, Krav Maga is a really funny word.  
> Also, this almost didn't have dragon Jon in it at all, but I thought that if I were a reader reading a dragon fic I'd be pretty pissed if no dragon showed up at all.  
> ALSO. I lied, this will have a small overarching plot.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about Jon's eating habits.

Come morning, Tim was dutifully back in the Institute.

Not without a nasty glance in Jon’s direction, though, but since Tim mostly followed his own agenda, he could keep himself occupied without relying too much on Jon. At least that hadn’t changed. After all, normally Jon would hardly look up from his work to spare his co-workers a glance either, least of all Tim. He avoided eye contact whenever Jon came close, and if he had something to ask him, it went via Sasha or Martin. It wasn’t cooperation exactly, far from it, but he could work with this arrangement.

Life went on as it should.

A lady came in whose skin wrung around her like stretched scales on an underbelly, spooking Martin quite a bit. With her she brought hundreds of newly hatched wyrms, two-legged winged creatures of lesser intelligence that crawled and dripped off and out of her dry scale-like skin like worms. When she took her place on the chair, her body bent awkwardly and stiff, gripping the bottom of the chair like she was uncomfortable with the motion or wasn’t sure if this was how one sat.

Jon was captivated from the moment she came in. The lady stank of a Corruption. The small not-dragons buried in her human flesh confirmed that. It was not a smell Jon actively wanted to seek out, but her slow but scratchy writing had him on the edge of his seat. She did not write hastily, rather took her time carving the words into the paper, nearly ripping it in half at a particularly long lash.

Him and Martin sat on the opposite side of the window, watching her slave away at her story. It was rare that Jon came out to watch statement givers, either receiving them in his own office or letting one of his assistants deal with the written forms. It was voyeuristic in a way that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with, but Martin seemed to have no qualms about watching her, so Jon stuck by his side.

Martin was here because he had charisma and was good at explaining to guests what the procedure was in a helpful manner that was neither too flippant of the statement giver’s mental state, or too eager about what happened to them, or awkward in communication in every single way.

After she was done, she smiled crooked, her skin turning around her mouth like a tree twisting around itself, and gave them her thanks with a raspy, though feminine voice. As she left she nearly crawled out of the room, stalked through the hallways and out of the building, clawing at the walls with her jagged nails. Not knowing what to do with the little wyrms she left behind, Martin got a broom from somewhere and tried to sweep them all into a little pile in the corner.

“Wow,” Martin said when the woman was out of sight. “That was weird.”

“Hardly the first time I’ve ever seen it,” Jon remarked, though he supposed it would be pretty unusual for Martin. Nasty? Yes. Weird? No. Though he did notice that she had a peculiar smell to her. Rot mixed with the sort of magic that was normally used by humans, twisting her scent in all the wrong ways. The magic was young, barely even cast as if it were still in its process of being made. It lingered in the air and stuck to the statement which Martin carefully slid into a folder after hastily brushing off a wriggling wyrm.

Although his senses were notably dulled as a human, Jon scented the air attentively. It made his nose itch and scrunch up.

“Really?” Martin said with a tremor in his voice, though not entirely because he was afraid. He sounded more worried. “You’ve seen worms crawling out of people like they’re living flesh hives before?”

Yes. Yes, that and much more. Though rarely when the people themselves are in fact the dragons that spawned them, which made the situation all that much weirder. Corruptions had little need for pretences and rarely presented as humans when, to them, mankind’s only use was that they made such good, putrid hoards for them. A Corruption casting itself in a human skin had plans and secrets and fears to spread that went far beyond rot and bugs and mold and infestation. Ones Jon couldn’t wait to get his talons on.

“Not that, exactly. But Corruptions do tend to keep their spawn close to them, so this wasn’t all that out of the ordinary. I wonder what went wrong with her transformation though.” Jon’s mind drifted to the statement in Martin’s hands, eager to snatch it away from him so he could hole up in his room and read it.

“Corruption?” His eyes widened. “You mean like, _dragon_ Corruption? That was a dragon?”

“Obviously. Her skin didn’t look exactly normal, did it. And the wyrms crawling all over the bloody room.”

“I see…” Martin said, wiping his hand on his sweater, leaving behind a hint of slime on the knitwear that would never fully wash out anymore. Then he flustered. “Erm, do you want this?”

Leaning away from him at an odd angle, Martin made Jon aware of just how close he kept his eye on the file in the crook of his arm.

Nodding, Jon held out his hand and took the offered folder from him, taking great pains not to open it immediately and drink in the words.

“Jane Prentiss,” he said, pulling out a pen from the breast pocket of his shirt to write her name on the tab.

He honestly didn’t know what was so special about this particular statement. It sang to him like the crawling of the wyrms in the statement room writhed and slobbered. His attention drifted and his eyes wanted to see more than they currently could. He could wait perfectly fine for his statements until at least lunch break, unless he forgot, buried under his work. And the fears of other dragons never enticed him that much in the first place. She… Jane Prentiss had more to say, he felt like. Like the story wasn’t done yet, not obvious to him at first glance as it was so often with these regular statements.

“Regarding her transformation.” He did not write this down. He put in ‘– Corruption’, next to her name.

He needed to read it before it was send off to research and disappeared for a week. It seemed too important to let go, especially since the file was already in his hands, though that could just be the hunger talking.

Speaking of hunger.

The pile of wyrms flapped their still wet and newly hatched wings futilely against each other, looking for leverage and a dead body to crawl into. They were weak, Jon noted, and their teeth underdeveloped and soft poking at the walls and floor. The only damage they could do was secreting their slime, maybe making Martin cough for a day or two. It made him think of the state of Jane Prentiss was in, wrong and bent and twisted. Weak herself.

Jon reached down and grabbed a coiling wyrm off the floor before popping it into his mouth. It wasn’t proper food, but it slid nicely around his tongue, its stench setting his nerves on fire in a way he didn’t dislike. It wriggled helplessly for a moment before bursting open in scales and goo between Jon’s teeth, permanently ending its wanton destruction of Institute floorboards.

“Jon!” Ah, Martin was still here. “What are you doing!”

“Oh– uhm.” Jon had the sense to look abashed. He licked his teeth behind closed lips and swallowed thickly. “Just a snack.”

“Really? Worms? From the floor?” He blinked and shook his head. “Right.”

“You’ve seen me eat bugs before!”

“Have not!”

“Just the other day, in fact! Right in front of you.” Of all arguments to have with Martin, this shouldn’t be it. He didn’t have to justify what he ate to humans, least of all not something as inoffensive as dragon vermin. Worse thing was, he didn’t even like eating in front of others. Made him feel horribly self-conscious. Picking off bugs and insects was more of a reflex than anything. Deep in thought, Jon would often pick them off almost automatically while he was reading. It was effortless, handy, and cleaned up well.

That they came from the floor was extremely unfortunate, however.

“You mean–” The gears were visibly spinning in Martin’s head. “From the book?!”

“Silverfish, yes. Nasty buggers. Eat the words right off the pages.”

“I bet they do!” The corners of Martin’s mouth quirked upwards and his eyes glinted playfully. It was a rare look for him to have when Jon was nearby since he was usually so skittish around him. With eyes like that, Jon felt a quip coming up. “So what that means is… you’re pest control?”

Jon made a face, but couldn’t disagree. He liked to keep his archives clean.

“...It helps that they’re so tasty.”

Martin did alright around Jon. His initial tension had not made a comeback, and if he closed his eyes he could pretend that Martin accomplished a little bit more these days. Jon felt a little bit sheepish though, since after his fainting spell he initially meant for Martin to sit down in the break room and have some tea once he came to, but as he sat him down and watched him sway on the chair brimming with questions, he’d gladly forgotten all about comfort. And then when Martin had perked up a bit more, he’d send him home, just like that. The next day Martin had apologized to him, instead of the other way around, sweating and worrying about what Jon would think of him.

Jon could allow a little joke. He even cracked a grin.

Martin beamed, looking rather pleased with himself, but caught himself from being too enthusiastic at discovering his boss ate the bugs off of research documents. He wrung his wrists and seemed like he was about to ask another question, but held his tongue.

It would do him good to be more demanding, Jon thought. Martin had lots to ask.

The remaining wyrms were dealt with by the janitor’s fire blasting magic, nearly levelling the whole goddamn room by the intensity with which they burned. Jon supposed he should have warned Martin earlier about their ability to burrow into flesh like tubeworms, but the premature crawlers were so lethargic he doubted they posed a real danger to him. They would grow stronger and fiercer only until they festered in the human’s garbage and disgust long enough, and now that they were gone through fire magic, they wouldn’t be able to bother the archives at all.

Back in his office, Jon tapped the Prentiss file fondly, placing it in his top drawer and avowing himself to it once he was done with his more urgent work. Fresh stacks of unprocessed files and documents piled on top of each other in the archive’s shelves, the promise of a busy work day ahead of him. There was much more work to do before he could satisfy his curiosity and peer into the Prentiss story. If only Elias would quit accepting any vaguely magical mishap into his archives, then his days would be far more productive and satiating. No, instead his hands were full with puzzling out the genealogy of some insignificant wizard whose temperate fears and lack of dragon interaction hardly fit the archive’s conduit. Still, he processed them, just like Elias wanted him to, and at the end of the day he related it to his boss like knowing the man’s entire family tree and unfortunate deaths mattered at all.

The Institute was his hoard, including Jon, whose own hoard was the archives. There was no point fighting his boss over information.

He hated sitting on his bum, working himself to the bone for such little reward. His human body ached with inactivity, but with Tim still moving about the archives clearly wary of him, he’d rather not take his chances and recline more comfortably on the floor as a dragon in case he might catch a glimpse. Plus, his office wasn’t too big, filled with bookshelves and boxes full of memorabilia he had collected over the years and cluttering the room, and he’d make a mess of it in a second, however enticing the idea of rolling around in his knowledge might be.

So he tapped away at his MacBook, sending his emails and collecting his research with an aching ass.

“Stupid thing,” he said, wrestling with the buttons. He’d never bothered to take typing classes, so he clenched his fists as if holding daggers, and unleashed his index fingers onto the flat buttons with an impatient but confused ferocity well known to computerkind. He wasn’t too great with technology, far too used to his own abilities as a Beholding who could find whatever he held within his collection in an instant. It wasn’t until the public begged for digitized documents that he was inclined to operate his first computer.

It gave him the world. And Wikipedia.

And then there was the pornography blinding his eyes whenever he pressed the wrong banners on the internet. Salacious succubi promising the wizard reading this a lifetime of sexual energy and the like. All located entirely within his area of course, wherever she thought that might be.

“Sasha!?” He called out from his chair at his open door.

Sasha was very handy with computers. He figured she might banish the naked breasts from his laptop once and for all, since they barred him from working comfortably, though he did suspect it was her who put the spam onto it in the first place. Jon didn't appreciate the human body, naked, and she was always messing with his laptop. Even if it was him asking her to do so.

No reply from hallways. The archives were big, and she might be out in the field, unless– oh, right. She and Martin had said their goodbyes about an hour ago. It was safe to assume Tim had gone as well.

“Far too late, then.”

He clicked the smut away, shut his laptop and stretched his arms over his head. With his work done, the file in his desk sang to him once more and he gladly took it under his arm on his way to his nest.

Jon lived in the archives. He had to, really, since the idea of thinking about stepping a foot outside the Institute made him sick to his stomach. It was what his assistants were for after all – doing field research and cross referencing information not found in the archives or library. They helped him reach places where he could not set foot. It was why the absence of his assistants previously had set his anxiety through the roof, unable to fully comprehend the research he was given, and the distinct lack of supplemental material of angles and perspectives that he wouldn’t have come up with by himself.

The Institute had little housing options, being an institute and not a university. But the building was old, created by and for dragons, and Jon had a modest studio-like room where he could sleep and clean himself, as well as retreat from the overload of work when it became too much for him, though that rarely happened anymore. He often slept just as easily between his treasured files, maybe even sweeter, cradled by his favourite stories however gruesome they might be.

Jon leaped on top of the shelf with ease, his supple body stretching and curving perfectly around the scratched wood he attached himself to. It could take his talons and his body weight with ease, as it housed documents and artefacts far heavier than him and the sturdy scaffolding was built with Jon’s claws in mind. The new groves added to the collection of scratches.

He yawned once, jaws gaping and lips stretching wide, showing off his long rows of teeth and a pink throat like a lazy cat. As he opened the file, fresh and waiting for him, he knew his bone-deep fatigue would soon dim to a comfortable and satiated drowsiness.

His nostrils snorted at the stench of decay and larvae, but his forked tongue flicked at the fear imbedded in those papers. Three of them, filled from top to bottom with Jane Prentiss’ frantic handwriting. His long tail hung off the side of the shelf, whipping agitatedly against the wood. He had cast away his sweater, allowing his long curved wings the breathing room they craved. His eyes were wide open, pupils dilated in the darkness of the archives, but shining with a moonlight glow as they took in the information.

Of the dragon nest in the basement of Jane’s flat, where a thousand wyrms and their mother dragon burrowed secretly, intending to infect the entire building with disease, eating it from the inside out.

Of her talk of ley-lines and magic and her job selling crystals. The fears of her youth, their vision parallel with the wyrms that now crawled out of her skin like puckered blackheads.

Her capture and consequent escape of the nest.

Her intrigue, and eventually her own juvenile magic trying its hardest to morph the holes in her skin into something the dragons would accept.

Her regret.

Her lust for more.

And her conviction that the Institute would help her with it.

Jane Prentiss, the self-proclaimed witch, but indubitably human woman who had made the fear of a Corruption successfully her own. Nearly successful, though, by her account of the agonizing screams from under her skin. But successful in that the song listened to her as much as she listened to it.

It fed him. The tremor in her handwriting as the scrutiny of the two strangers, Jon and Martin, watched her fall apart as she divulged her story. The the quiver in her voice as she spoke to the Corruption dragon of alliances and magic. Her immobile body as the hive build its way in and around her.

He drank it in, the knowledge for his own curiosity.

But it also worried him, because Elias couldn’t know about any of it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Georgie visits the archives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a really big one. Biggest chapter I've ever posted actually.  
> Some warnings:  
> \- a mention of a possibly transgender character and the deadnaming thereof. I didn't intend to write them like that, but it sort of happened while I adjusted canon to fit into this AU and it felt natural to include. I tried to be as sensitive about it as I could, but I am not transgender myself, and I frankly don't really know how it will land. If you have remarks about it, please let me know.  
> \- some allusions to suicide (I KNOW the tag says humour and fluff but I just can't not write angst). It's not a realistic (or even humanly managable), but if it triggers you, skip from the paragraph "The first-" - to "She nodded."

Georgie was fearless.

This wasn’t necessarily a good thing, or a really brave thing. Many things could go wrong if you didn’t have fear. You might become careless. You wouldn’t know what to look out for, hurt yourself or someone else in the process.

Not Georgie though. She wasn’t an idiot. She still knew danger when it looked her in the eye.

Danger’s problem was that Georgie had no problem looking back.

Okay, if you described it like that it sounded a little bit too cool, like the slogan of an action movie or something.

Georgie was a dragon of the End, but death did not precede or follow her wherever she went. Being fearless meant that she did not need the fear of humans to live at all. In fact, she preferred Hungarian, for its cheeses. 

This made other dragons very confused and disinterested in her. The not eating the Hungarian population bit. If there was no fear to be gained, or in some cases, shared, what purpose was there to hang around a woman who talked about ghosts because she simply found them “pretty nifty, scientifically speaking”? Jon, her then boyfriend, was the exception to this, but he was already quite weird on his own. His interests went beyond the draconic. He cared about others and empathized. He was the only dragon she thought would have the patience to sit through her bi-monthly twenty minute long talks about haunted houses and the subsequent guest-speakers. 

Georgie was offered hoards and alliances and fights and conquests and races, to which she simply said ‘no thank you’, because that’s where the danger lay, and she still had loads of things to live for. 

So when a witch cursed her and cast her in a human form indefinitely, Georgie found that she had no actual problems with that. She was already fond of humans. Blending in was no problem, and became fun, even. She had felt more relaxed and at ease as a human than she'd ever felt as a dragon.

And Jon hadn’t minded that she was different. Not one bit. Then again he didn’t mind a lot of things. Things that he _should_ be wary of. Instead, his paranoia and obsessions increased to the point that he actively put himself in harm's way. The sort of situations Georgie actively avoided because she _knew_ they were dangerous. In that regard, Jon was a regular dragon. Heading off towards horrors and schemes and danger and traps in search of the fears that fed him.

Well, she couldn’t with that so… It was better they split. He couldn’t be helped, and she had too many things she wanted to do. 

So when she picked up her phone, Jon was the last person she expected to hear on the other side of the line. First of all, she didn’t know he owned a phone at all, assumed he was electronically illiterate. Her number he could easily have pulled from that mass of Knowing, which wasn’t creepy at all! It was the thought of his taloned fingers carefully pressing her number into the touch screen so it wouldn’t shatter under his nails that had her chuckling. 

Secondly, it’s not like they got separated completely, but they hadn’t spoken in nearly seven years. If he called now after such a long time of radio silence, it either meant something terrible had happened, or he got new assistants, in which case, she had no problem visiting to see if he was doing alright. 

When she picked up, he sounded just the same as always, although a fair bit less growlier in his human disguise. Just a hint of fatigue in his voice, though that was nothing new. When he still hadn’t told her about some dragon-related conspiracy theory after a full minute in, she knew it was safe to assume that the world wasn’t on the brink of destruction just yet.

“Elias has assigned me new assistants,” he began after he got the pleasantries out of the way.

“Oh,” Georgie replied with a soft voice. So that was the issue. She dared to ask: “How are they?” because Jon wouldn’t have brought them up if they were truly terrible.

“Oh, fine. Just fine, really. They’re alright. Doing their job just fine with some minor hiccups. Apart from Martin who doesn’t know Latin from Greek, but so far he hasn’t caused any major incidents, so… so far so good, right?” 

Ah, he was back to his cynical self. Georgie smiled, though she felt sorry for the poor sod on the receiving end of Jon’s scorn. Jon could be quite dry at times. The fact that he spoke of the assistants so flippantly told her she needn't worry too much. 

“Should I come over?” She asked it casually, as if they hadn’t stopped speaking for seven years. But this was their custom. Jon got new assistants, she visited to see how he handled it, they talked for a bit and they parted once again. A part of her still liked Jon. As a friend, though. He was funny and inquisitive, and always provided a fresh perspective whenever she had trouble, but he did not truly want her near for too long. She did not belong there, to be easily indexed and filed, in his archives. 

Jon was silent for a moment before answering ‘yes’ with a hastiness you wouldn’t expect from someone who had to think over a question. He asked her if she lived nearby and she told him no, but she was a freelancer who could plan her own hours and work outside of home if needed, and that she would step by soon. Jon thanked her as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, in the way like you would thank someone for a glass of water after being stranded in the desert for years. Grateful, and unaccustomed to other person after an intense period of drought. Jon had always been overly dramatic.

\--

Some weeks later, the Institute, an old and grey beacon in the midst of London, welcomed her like a beast waiting to devour its prey. Its high arching doors opened up readily for her, eager to take in the Dragon-Who-Was-Not-A-Dragon and strip her of all her stories. But Georgie had her dignity, and would not yield so easily for another fear.

In the early afternoon, the building bustled with active members of the Institute walking about. Researchers, sorcerers and students all accumulating in one place to gather as much knowledge as they possibly could. Their intents malicious or benevolent, unknown to Georgie. They gave her no trouble, though, as she made her way to the reception.

The receptionist was a woman named Rosie, and told her Jon was busy and someone else would come up to take her to the archives. She called someone in over the phone, referring to the recipient as ‘Sasha’, who must be one of Jon’s new assistants. Georgie told the receptionist that she was familiar with the archives and wouldn’t need a guide to find her way downstairs to Jon. Rosie brushed it off, saying it was protocol. Georgie sighed, rather unwilling to fight the Institute’s on that.

The girl who came to receive her was tall and wiry. She had round eyes which were framed by equally round glasses. She wore her black curly hair in long numerous braids which hung on the small of her back and swished wildly with every step she took as she led Georgie down into the archives.

The old hallways never renovated for deterioration sucked her in, the slugging terror of what awaited her at the end hidden by the descending steps of the archives. That was probably what the building wanted her to think. She knew the monster lurking in the depth would just be Jon, taking statements and obsessing over invisible red threads. 

“Jon’s still busy,” the girl, Sasha, said. “But you can wait in the break room in the meantime.”

“No problem.”

After she sat down on one of the cheap plastic chairs, Sasha put on a pot of coffee for her. 

“How’s he treating you guys?” Georgie asked before Sasha could turn around and go back to her job.

“Who, Jon? He’s alright.” Sasha, feeling up for a chat, took place on the empty chair next to her. Then she chuckled as if she was about to say something naughty. “He’s a real hardass, but he means well. Super dedicated to his work, yeah? Are you two friends?”

“Sort of.” Georgie wasn’t quite sure what her relationship with Jon was anymore. He got so complicated, and it’s not like they spoke very often, even during the better parts of their distant relationship. “Me and Jon go waaay back.”

“Oh!” Surprise rounded her expression, stretching her already quite long face. “Are you, uhm. Are you also a–”

Georgie figured it wouldn’t hurt telling her. “Yeah, I’m a dragon.” 

Jon hadn’t had the kindest of assistants. Distrustful, scared, even greedy once they found out they got to work for a Beholding dragon. It’s why most of his assistants had not parted affably with the Institute. Either Elias took care of them, or the tragedy of dragons caught up with them sooner or later. 

It would be a shame if Sasha ended up like that. She seemed nice. Then again, there were a lot of seemingly nice assistants who had turned out hostile.

“Is that a problem for you?” Georgie asked. If she was a problem to Sasha and by extension the other assistants, then the sentiment would come down tenfold on top of Jon.

“Not at all!” Her voice was bubbly and sweet, and it made Georgie instinctively smile. “Unless you’re planning to eat me, but that’s such an annoying thing to think every time you see a dragon looking like a human.”

She could appreciate the humour in that. Satisfied with that answer, Georgie nodded. They got to chatting and drinking coffee. Sasha jokingly told her Jon would put her back to work in an instant if he saw her taking another break, never mind the fact that he was a smoker himself. That surprised Georgie before she stopped to think about it, and she let out a soft ‘oh!’ at the mention of it. It made sense. He must be bursting at the seams with pent up stress.

“Can I ask, what species are you?”

“Oh, ehm, I’d rather not say.” If she told Sasha she was a Terminus dragon, she might think someone was about to die in the archives, and she did NOT need the amount of panic that would cause. “My type tends to freak people out.”

Everyone had seen an End dragon at some point of their lives, whether they were hostile or neutral, and if you hadn’t yet, you soon would. Everyone has had a brush with death, and dragons of the End came where death was to be found.

“I mean, isn’t that basically all dragons?”

Georgie shrugged, a very human motion she had come to love, because it encompassed the condition of being alive so well. “I guess you’re right about that.”

Sasha didn't pry any further. Maybe she had learned from Jon that dragons didn’t exactly spill the beans freely about themselves. At least, Jon and Georgie didn’t. 

“I’ll see if Jon’s ready for you yet,” Sasha said after gulping down her coffee, standing up from her chair. 

It was strange to see Jon again. Mostly because she still remembered him as a dragon shorter than her legs, not the dishevelled dark-haired man she saw standing in front of her now, his leather coat encompassing his small frame in a way that made him look way too angsty. 

“Georgie!” he said surprised as they peeked through the door opening. “Sasha, you didn’t tell me it was _Georgie_.”

“Sorry, Jon,” she said sheepish. “You looked like you were really busy.”

“Really?” Georgie said. “All knowing and the eye didn’t make any mention of me? I’m hurt.”

“Georgie.” Jon smiled elated and reached out to touch her hands, which Georgie gladly accepted. Jon was good like this, happy, casual, relaxed. This Jon, she could deal with, and hold hands with without feeling guilty. The touch of his palms felt right against hers. “I should have assumed it was you. My apologies.”

“Oh, it’s fine, Jon. Sasha was a good host.” Georgie knead Jon’s fingers reassuringly, still unaccustomed to how human he looked. His color was a few shades lighter than hers, and his fingers much thinner and without pads like his dragon form, giving them a soft and un-calloused texture, which was only natural since she doubted Jon ever did any heavy lifting around here. 

Jon and Georgie ignored an embarrassed “right, I’ll leave you to it,” from Sasha, who stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. 

“How have you been?” Georgie asked, leaning her bum on Jon’s overly cluttered desk once they were alone in his office. 

He pulled his hands back and sat back down in his chair, placing them neatly onto his lap. “It’s been alright.” He sucked in a breath. “It’s been good. They’re doing decent work. We're fine. Sasha comes from artefact storage while both Martin and Tim have been transferred from research, so they’re familiar with it, in a way. Martin’s been curious about me, but he won’t ask me any questions–”

“Which pisses you off to no end,” Georgie supplemented.

“–which _pisses_ me off to no end!”

“Let me guess, you’re just waiting for him to talk to you first, instead of reaching out yourself.” Now, this was the second time he mentioned Martin had him riled up. As a dragon, Jon wasn’t too social with humans, but for the love of god he worked with them. He could be so horribly obtuse. Talk it out or stop complaining, Jon. 

Jon waved it away. “Please. If he wants to know, he can ask.” Then he clenched his eyes in pain, and brought a hand to his tired face. “Really, Elias hadn’t even told them about me in the contract. I had to scare Martin in the pitch dark archives a full week after we met before I found out they didn’t know. I thought he was going to puke.”

“You’re not _that_ ugly.”

“Very funny.”

“Poor guy though…” Georgie put a hand on her mouth, her expression of joy slowly turning stern, mulling over the implications of what he told her. “You don’t think Elias is planning something, do you?”

He gave her a look back, one that said he wasn’t so sure. “Elias plays cruel pranks. I’m sure this was nothing. Just his poor sense of humour, likely. Fooling around with the archives.”

Georgie hoped so. 

“But enough about me,” Jon said, grimacing at his own indulgence. “What have you– How have you been?”

Jon was so awkward when it came to asking questions in human form, like he was still worried his powers might slip through and suck the information out of her brain. Even if the questions were as ordinary as how she was doing. “I’ve been good, Jon. Somehow, creating my own job opportunities has really worked out for me, thankfully. You’ve got no idea how the housing crisis’ been. No, don’t ask. I’ll get depressed.”

“That’s great, Georgie.” His smile was small but genuine. “I suppose finding a cave to go live in isn’t really part of the equation.”

That last part was mumbled, obviously alluding to her curse. Georgie was silent, seeing this as a good part to divert the conversation into the direction she supposed would have to come up at some point. But it had been weird, what had happened, and she couldn’t just barge in with it like this. She had to wait. At least until later. 

“Hey. You’ll never guess what my job is.”

Jon stared at her, not guessing. 

“No you have to guess.”

“I’m essentially blind right now. Just kill me while you’re at it.”

Rolling her eyes, she told him about her job. The columns she wrote for this online news site. Her discovery of podcasts and her passion for ghost stories and hauntings, and the inevitable combination of the two. Her success and her tentative alliances with other podcasts and web series. More importantly, the cat she had adopted a couple of weeks ago, which she lovingly showed pictures of on her phone. It made even Jon’s stony face melt, so, mission accomplished. 

The conversation at some point circled back to Jon’s job.

The last time she came to visit, it had just been him and Michael in the archives. He was the last remaining member of a group containing of two dragons and one human assistant who’d had experience with training Hunters, which Georgie had thought was just asking for trouble. After years of being subjected to the scorn of humans, Elias had suggested Jon take on dragon assistants to see if his own kin would do any better working with him. It must have been Elias’ little trick too that one of them had been a human, because Jon had made no mention of that woman today.

She was far less worried about the dragons, being as tough and nearly immortal as they were.

“Whatever happened to Eric? How’s he doing?”

She remembered Eric. A Beholding like Jon. Timid but not in an anti-social way. He was just a bit awkward, sort of forlorn and smiling away in his big leather coat like his own misery didn’t matter too much in the grand scheme of things. He looked like he found it interesting, to see what would happen if he stuck around, accepting all consequences profoundly thereby. Georgie had gotten on with Eric more, because unlike Michael he wasn’t exceptionally evil.

Jon's eyes grew dark at the mention of his name. “Eric quit.”

"Oh, no." She braced for the worst. The Institute… Elias Bouchard had the tendency to devour the people he owned. Not literal, Georgie suspected, but he was gruelling in a way that made her hesitant to step inside his building every time she visited. There was always the thought that she might not be allowed outside, once she ventured too deep.

"He put in his notice to fully take care of Gerard when he was born,” Jon continued.

"Oh,” she said lamely.

"And then Mary killed him." 

"Oh no!" Her eyebrows shot up, but then she frowned. “Wait. I think I already knew this.”

“Ah, right. I guess it has been a very long time already. God, Eric was nearly forty years ago.”

“Geez, that’s stupid of me. I think I read it in the papers as well. Sorry Jon.” Him and Eric had looked like they got along. Reminding him of the loss made her feel embarrassed.

"It's alright." Jon didn't look terribly upset (anymore), rubbing his hands absentmindedly.

Forty years was a long time, even for young dragons like them, but it was easy to forget how much they experienced in a lifetime. And she had missed so much of his life, and he of hers too. To go through it all in such a short timespan wore her out.

At the mention of a child, Georgie had felt a familiar thought bubble up, but she couldn’t quite place it. She had a feeling it had something to do with the Institute as well. “Who was Gerard again?”

“Ah, Gerry.” Jon smiled wistfully. “He’s the one who always hangs around the Institute without actually joining. Got offered a lot of jobs through the years though, but never accepted any. Said to us, 'I'll probably fucking die if I get a job here, so thanks but no thanks, mates.' In the end he went off with Gertrude to hunt monsters or something. Last time I heard they were sipping piña coladas on the beach.”

Jon sounded good putting on a young person voice. Made him look not as stern. Plus the nasal tone he used made him sound really funny.

“And Gertrude was…”

“She only worked here for a month or two. Terribly incompetent. I suspect she was thwarting my work so I had her fired. There was always stuff going missing around that time if I remember… She used to rearranged my order when I wasn’t looking. Took me hours to get it in its original state again.” 

Jon shook his head, his fingers tapping the book in front of him. She could tell he was getting impatient. She probably kept him from his work.

Georgie’s head was already spinning with the infodump of names, and she hadn’t even met all of his new assistants yet. Frankly, she wasn’t all that interested in his work. Even including the monsters and fears and mysteries, it was all a bit dry. She’d rather read a good thriller in the form of a book, or forum posts she could dissect and research and maybe make a story out of. Not bummers about co-worker deaths. Perhaps if he told the stories of his assistants a little bit more compelling she could sit through his rants about them, but he always focused more on their work than their personal life.

“I think it’s time for me to go.” Her legs were getting sore from leaning on the desk instead of sitting properly on a chair. Jon had neglected to give her one, of course. “Sasha said you were busy.”

The look in his eyes told her he hadn’t wanted to impose on her, but was grateful she offered to go herself. 

“Will you come back?” he asked, as if she had traveled all this way just to chit-chat with him for half an hour. 

“I’ll stick around,” she said, patting her shoulder bag. “I’ve got my work with me, so you can find me in the archive when you’re done, if it’s still got that big table.”

“Yes, it’s still there. Ah, you might run into Tim if he comes back. Don’t… Don’t tell him about what you are. He didn’t take too well to– … to me.”

And he only told her now? She could have expected that. “Oh, Jon.” She sighed. “Right. Of course. Not like I go around announcing it to everyone I meet anyway.”

Jon nodded. “And thank you, Georgie. Really.”

She wasn’t going to tell him she missed him, though it was on the tip of her tongue. Instead she smiled as she stepped out of his office and into the archives. 

That Tim person never showed up in the end. Sasha did, though, and although she claimed she was ‘like, super busy,’ she stopped by every so often to babble, keeping Georgie off her work as well.

Martin made his appearance sometime later. Typical white lad. The sort of guy you think of when you think ‘proper English lad, probably into accounting’. Very friendly though, offering her tea and a biscuit like someone’s nan. She would have to smack Jon upside the head for his terrible behaviour towards the guy later.

They were alright people, she decided. 

At some point, sooner than she expected, Jon came out of his office to address their little group. “Don’t die of shock,” he told them, “but I will be off earlier today.”

“Really?” This was Martin, who sat there a bit dumbfounded. 

Sasha supplied a, “that’s a first”. 

Jon ignored their taunts. “I still have some things to take care of. Do continue working, please.” 

Jon still had his reports to make to Elias. The black talon that curled around Jon like a fence, always keeping him just out of reach no matter how hard Jon tried to keep up the facade that his job was normal and needed. By his way of speech, she assumed Sasha and Martin didn’t know what the “things he had to take care of” were. They shrugged and went on about their business, nothing out of the ordinary to them. Jon was always busy with something or the other.

Then he came to stand next to Georgie, obviously spying on the work on her laptop, but too polite to outright ask. All the open tabs on wikis and forums must be catching his eye. “I’ll see you in about thirty minutes?” 

“Yeah, sure.”

“If you get hungry, we’ve got the cantina upstairs. Unless you want to go out.”

“Really? Do you wanna go out?” She sincerely doubted it. Jon was stuck to the institute and unless something had changed in the last few years–ah, no, he was making that kicked puppy face again. “Fine,” she sighed. “You know what? I'll buy us some groceries, then we can have dinner at your place.” She patted his back, speaking the planning into existence wether he was alright with it or not, the leather of his coat thudding reassuringly. 

Jon came back from Elias about forty minutes after he left, looking tired and worn as he sulked through the hallways. With the archives empty, he made no hesitation to undo himself of his pants and coat, sinking back into his four-legged self with ease. He stretched, his scaled back arching high and his wings furled above him as Georgie complained about his casual nudity. Jon blinked at her, not caring in the least.

“What did you think of them?” he said, alluding to his assistants, folding himself up on the table so he could stare at her semi-eye level. He was taller than her now.

“They’re sweet. Totally different from the others, though. From what I remember.” She held his snout in her hands, relishing in the hard touch against her palms. He went lax, letting her run her hands over his snout and forehead with long strokes. The only thing she had missed was possibly the touch of another dragon. Though not entirely social, most of them lived in some sort of system where they socialized, whether it be a family or cult or institute. They might feed on fear, but they were creatures of the flesh first. It calmed her in a way she didn’t know she craved, just by touching another’s skin.

“Yes. They are very… ignorant.”

“Then you've got to tell them, silly.” She shook his head to emphasize. “You went through all that trouble to look human just to be accepted by them. Now play the part. Socialize.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” he mumbled. “You’re a natural.”

She went still. 

“You’re good with people, Georgie. I–I’m not. They don’t get what I say half of the time, and I don’t understand all their– _references_. I can't join in with their conversations, because I have no idea what they're saying. Ridiculous as it sounds, sometimes I found it easier with Michael around.”

At That, Georgie let out a very loud, very embarrassing chortle. “You don’t mean that! He was awful.”

“At least I knew where he was coming from! He just wanted to kill people. Martin– Martin keeps trying to get me to drink _tea_. _Why_? What does he _want_ from me? I keep telling him no but he keeps _insisting_.”

“I think he’s trying to get you to drink tea, Jon.”

Jon snorted through his slitted nostrils, clearly distrustful.

“Michael wasn’t so bad… near the end.”

Georgie sincerely doubted that. What, had he died in some sort of heroic act of self-sacrifice or something? She had to laugh. Michael had been a total self-absorbed creep.

“Do I even want to know?”

“He’s not Michael anymore.”

This made her sit up, alert. “What do you mean?”

“He turned himself into someone else. Her name’s Helen. She quit the Institute, said she had no need for it anymore. She’s a real estate agent now.”

"Real estate?!" Georgie sat there in stunned silence, processing what sounded more and more like a happy ending to a coming-out story. Then she made up her mind. “Then stop deadnaming her!” Georgie shook his face again. 

“Deadnaming!? What do you– oh.”

It wasn’t exactly the same, maybe. Twisting Deceits were ample in hallucinatory and transformation magic, but unlike Strangers they played with the victim’s perceptions of their surroundings, not their bodies so much. If one changed its own personality _along with_ their appearance, it would be because they wanted it for themselves.

“Well, if you put it like that, it makes much more sense. God, I need to give her a call.” From the sound of it, he probably owed her some sort of apology. That was all fine by Georgie, but it meant Jon would have to put himself in harm’s way once again. Just because she sort of understood Helen's situation, didn't mean she trusted everything else about her.

“She totally still kills people, right.”

“Oh, most definitely.” 

He said this a bit too jovially to her liking. Or perhaps she had been losing her familiarity with dragons. They’ve always killed. It’s what was in their nature, and she, once upon a time, had been no different, though she herself had never taken another person’s life to feed on. Another oddity about her being a Death dragon. Jon, for all his anxieties and distrust, accepted them for what they were, despite the pretence he thought otherwise.

She wondered if she was still dragon enough. Then again, she had never gotten along with her own kind.

“Jon,” she said after a moment of thinking, quite ready to switch topics. “Do you want me to stay the night?”

It wasn’t intended as romantic at all, or sultry. Jon didn’t go for that, and they had both made it quite clear they did better split up. But she felt like lying down next to him, her skin on his, comforted by another being like her for the first time in years.

“If you want to. Then yes. Happily.”

Jon’s place in the Institute was nothing much. Cluttered, mostly, by neatly pressed papers as if a big box of them had recently spilled all of its contents on the floor. The pile in his bedroom told her it must all be his personal hoard, a comfort while sleeping. She knew from experience that if Jon was out, he was out. No twitch, no rolling to get comfortable, nothing. If Jon lay down on a flat piece of paper, it would remain pristine.

Georgie wasn’t as careful.

"Sorry for the mess, I–ah! Don't move!" Jon reached down and cleared a path in front of her feet, collecting all the documents and photographs and copies of texts in his thickly scaled arms and placing them on his already full tables.

He stood on his hind legs, arms hanging limp as he inspected the dishevelled mess. 

He was small in his own home, the high ceilings built for dragons much larger than him. Gigantic bookcases reached the top of it like it was the setting for some kind of Disney movie, only far less bright and romantic with how the rest of it looked as if the owner was solving a murder.

She put the groceries away in his frankly terribly underutilized kitchen. The power seemed to work to just fine and she checked if the stove could turn on. His fridge was gut-churningly empty and she placed two pathetic plastic boxes of ground beef and mushrooms in the middle of it. She had an inkling that if she left too much leftovers, he would surely forget about them and grow mold all over it. She none too gently stacked his files left on the counter so she had room for the pasta ingredients.

Then when she was done, she turned to Jon, who had become distracted and was busy placing photographs and files in a strategic order on the floor.

"Jon," she began while he organized his mess. "I've got something to tell you."

It was a wonder he hadn't known yet the instant he reverted back to his omniscient self. But, she supposed, he always had something else to think about and focus his attention on. Plus, it was a relief she had something she could tell him herself, instead of it being pulled out of her like spaghetti.

In that moment, though, as she began to speak, the knowledge struck him, his eyes widening and wings quivering.

"What happened?" he said, but it wasn't his usual voice. The compulsion in it bore down on her tongue and opened her lips.

"I became a dragon again,” she said, then immediately yelled at him. “JON!!" 

At least he had the decency to look apologetic. "Oh, god. Sorry Georgie, I didn't mean to–"

"Christ, I would have told you anyway!" She threw her hands up, exasperated. 

"I'm so sorry, Georgie. Please."

“I am NOT your story, Jon.” She saw the need in his eyes, the quiver in his wings, waiting to embrace her information like it was his by right. She knew he couldn’t help it, that this was his nature, and it made her so terribly frustrated.

“I know, Georgie. It was an accident. Do you want to tell me ho–”

“How?” She intercepted. He apologized, then immediately tried to pry her open for more info. Seriously, this is exactly the reason why she felt apprehensive coming here. “You don't _need_ to know. You already figured out how to become human your own way. Like, in _the_ most painful way possible. You don't need to know how I did it, if it was even me.” She let out a shaky breath.

“Yes. Right, yeah, of course. I just–I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about it.” She gave him an exasperated look. “R-right. I’m sorry. Here, let me get this out of the way.”

After clearing out the only sofa in the place, he sat down on it, inviting her to come sit next to him with a pitiful look in his eyes. She sighed and did so, cupping his supple neck with her hand, the muscle under it strong as he bowed his head in apology.

"So, yeah. I turned into a dragon again. I'm not going to tell you everything because frankly I don't really feel comfortable speaking about it yet." She sucked in a shuddering breath and sighed wearily. Jon, to his credit, stayed silent, waiting for her to tell him. Maybe his eyes had already clued him in on it, on everything, and he listened to her out of politeness, but she appreciated it regardless. "I have to die to turn back." 

Jon flinched away. "Oh." 

Yes, well, the feeling was a little bit stronger than _oh_. 

There was confusion, because for the first time since her birth as a Death dragon, the end had not seemed so distant from her, and as depressing as it sounded, it wasn’t all too bad. She supposed it was only natural. She was already fearless. Being afraid to die had never fit in the mix in the first place, despite her efforts to avoid danger the best she could. Then came resentment, because her body had changed again without her will. And then came grief, because she had not wanted to say goodbye to her life as a human.

“So, you died,” he said.

“Yeah.” Georgie looked down at his coffee table, covered in gruesome murder cases whose pictures, half obscured by other documents and folders, she did not want to see.

“So you’re a ghost now.” Jon said definitively, the grief in his voice sealing the finality of the statement. 

Wait, hold up. Did he think–?

“Jon. I’m not a _ghost_!!”

He looked at her befuddled. “What!? You just said you died!”

“I did die, but then I came back as a dragon and then a human again!”

“Then why didn't you say that more clearly?!”

“Because I thought magic was implied!”

Georgie’s heart raced from all of the mood swings shooting up through her body and she felt a giggle bubbling up in her throat. They reached an impasse. Jon had a funny look on his face, eyes blown wide and head cocked confused. She couldn’t help but laugh deliriously at it.

“Are you alright?” he said concerned once she got her heartbeat and laughter under control.

"I guess I am? I still don't understand why she cursed me. Maybe I never will. It could all have been some stupid experiment. And you know what? I don’t care. I like myself like this. I like going to dinners and meet up with friends whose topics aren't just about who, how, and why they're going to kill that week. I like my job and I like to meet new people and I like to talk about ghosts and date cute people who are normal."

That last bit wasn't meant as a disparaging comment towards Jon, but he averted his eyes nonetheless.

“The first time was an accident,” she said, trying not to think of the wicked woman driving the knife through her ribs, mad with contempt for Georgie, who had made the stupid mistake to visit her, to know why. All her years as a careful, but fearless thing, and she did something as moronic as that. “The second time I, I felt something inside of me I had never felt before. Like an understanding, you know?”

He nodded. Of course he would know.

“But not like you do, I think, or something. I don’t know, it’s all a bit weird. The point is, the End magic is closer to me now. If I want to pass over, or ‘transform’ I guess is a more neutral term to describe it, I just do. But my heart stops for a second every time.”

Georgie didn’t want to find out what happened if it stopped forever. Would she be stuck in between forms? A weird scaled human or fleshy dragon? Maybe she would come back as a ghost. Put that ‘What The Ghost?!’ domain money to good use.

"You want to stay human." It wasn't a question, or an assumption. She had died twice. Once with a knife stuck in her chest by courtesy of the witch. The second time, she willed it to happen like a good dragon of the End was supposed to, just not on themselves. It had hurt, but she had understood the finality behind it. Until she came back.

She nodded.

Jon looked in front of him with glazed over eyes. Then he opened his maw in a gentle dragon smile. “Humanity’s done you well.”

“Oh, Jon.” As she hugged his sturdy but slim shoulders, the weight of the conversation already lifted. She was frankly glad to have this behind her and move onto another topic as soon as possible. Possibly food-related. “You can have that too. I’m pretty sure Martin and Sasha are fond of you already.”

He stayed silent. The expressions he could make were limited, rigid if subtle, grotesque at worst, so it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. He sank into her touch. “I was actually talking ‘bout your rocking bod. How are the dates going?”

“Oh my god, Jon!” She laughed then, happily this time, and stayed happy until she left for her train back home the next morning. They didn’t talk about any more depressing topics for the rest of the evening, both worn out by the constant catch-up they had to play after such a long time of separation. Jon complained about the spaghetti before they had dinner, and she complained about his dramatic reading in the room next to her after they had dinner. They fell asleep together on the bed, Jon curled up against her feet, one paw firmly on that day’s statement.

The next morning, she hugged him very publicly in the reception hall. 

“You got to text me now,” she said, standing on the precipice of the Magnus Institute. It would let her go, but only in the ways that buildings couldn’t control who walked out and who stayed in. Elias Bouchard gave her a fierce green stink eye when she passed him in the hallway and a shit-eating grin like he knew it wasn’t her he needed, but Jon, barred behind his talons, keeping him from the world like a treasure. 

But that’s what they got cellphones for.

“I’ve also got E-mail,” he said. 

She already dreaded the one-worded letters cluttering her frankly already overflowing inbox.

“That’s great Jon. Welcome to the 21st century. But please only send me texts.”

She gave him a final squeeze, his coat scrunching up around her tightly wrapped arms. His own hug was lacking, but he had never been the strongest. Same went for his human form apparently. 

“Thank you, Georgie. For everything.”

“No problem, Jon. And hey, I mean it. Text me about anything at all. Don’t be a stranger.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martin writes poetry and gets to know Jon a little bit better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We hit 200 kudos! Thank you guys so much for all your comments and views and kudos and attention. I'm so happy this little au caught your interest.
> 
> warning: bad poetry. Also... sigh.... jonmartin I guess.

_What do you obfuscate under those glittering scales?_

_Like a sheep's cotton curtain, woven over your marble statue_

_Petals obscure your visage as much as_

Uhm.

Martin scratched his head, stuck on the words. He then crossed out the terrible last line his idiot brain provided, which had him use the word ‘obscure’ for the second time, made no sense structure wise, and didn’t come a single bit closer to describing how he felt. Think, Martin. What hides things? 

Well, Jon. 

But that wasn't exactly a revelation. Everybody hid things, Jon as much as anybody. That wasn’t the point. In what way did Jon hide things? Metaphors, Martin, you know of them.

He sat at the long wooden table in between the rows of filing cabinets and stacked shelves of the archive. He had his laptop in front of him to cross-reference the letters exchanged between two noble women about their encounters with Hive dragons. His actual attention, however, was focused on the small moleskine journal he wrote his daily musings and poetry in, finding his own handwriting a tad more interesting and easy to read than that of nineteenth century royalty. It was one of the more expensive things he owned, but after a lifetime of scarcity he felt like he could spoil himself with one good thing. He took it everywhere with him, in case inspiration struck, and as it were the archives had enough topics to write books about. But across all the letters and statements and artefacts and essays, there was only one thing that sparked his interest.

On the opposite end of the room, beyond the high-arching doors of the archives and the hallway, Jon was sat in his office, door closed, which meant Martin wouldn’t have to be so fugitive about working on his poetry. The walls weren’t thick. If Jon came out of his office, or even sat up, Martin would know. He would hear him shuffle behind the door sometimes, or mumble to himself or the recorder he used for statements. 

Jon was a private person, hardly interacted with his assistants and even less with the rest of the Institute if he could help it. When he did manage to hold up a conversation he always looked so pitifully out of depth, trying his hardest to come across as lucid and easy to understand. He often spoke as if the things he said were obvious, knowledge interspersed through offhand comments that had Martin grasping for answers before Jon went off onto another topic that seemingly had nothing to do with the one at hand. He was a pool of - hold that thought.

_A glittering lake unbridled with knowledge, shimmers_

_A mere songbird toppled by the waves as the creature moves_

_There’s a dragon in the water there, beholding everything_

_Organizing its folders._

Perhaps a bit literal. Then again, Jon was so interesting when he worked, his attention unwavering as he read about topics as mundane as train schedules, which he always had some strange commentary for that only the people present at that time could have had any possible knowledge of. When Martin felt particularly indulgent, he might even say he found Jon… Handsome. The grey touching his temples, curving neatly behind his ears and cut off before the spirals in them became too lush, unfortunately. The stern and wise look in his deep brown eyes when they weren’t freaking out over ‘old tomes’ and became too intense. The low drawl in his voice when he patiently, but deadpan supplemented his material with his assistant’s information.

Martin sighed wistfully, hand on his chin as he stared at Jon’s closed office door, a limp hand collapsed on his pen and paper. Oh, to watch what he couldn’t have. 

His mind drifted to the woman, Georgie, who had visited yesterday afternoon and whom he had seen leave earlier this morning. Pretty, with soft brown eyes and long curly hair tied into thick braids. Jon knew her. She had touched his back and he had smiled at her in a way that had Martin’s chest aching with envy. Martin didn’t know Jon could smile in any other way than wry, but he had looked so content in her presence. Almost relieved. It was something worth to write poetry about, if only Martin knew him as intimately as she appeared to.

Georgie had stayed the night, Martin realized the instant he saw her in the morning, as she waved him goodbye just as he entered the archives. She was a dragon, Sasha had told him none too secretively. She and Jon were old friends. 

His eyes drifted off. A little spider snuck over the table, its black body almost disappearing against the dark wood if it weren’t for its tiny movements.

Martin sighed. “Just you and me against this rotten world, isn’t it,” he lamented.

Its paws (because yes, they are paws. Have you ever seen a spider leg up close?) reached forward, pulling its little body with ease over the threshold of papers and documents bravely. Where it was off to, only god knew, but it kept up its journey steadily. Martin watched it with belated interest as it crawled over the edge of the table and towards Martin’s laptop before vanishing behind it. 

Then Jon opened his door, pulling him out of his thoughts. Suddenly confronted with his negligence, Martin closed his journal, pulled his laptop in front of him and feigned composure, hands folded over the old letters. Jon walked over with an absent minded look in his eyes, more interested in the stacks of files and papers he was holding than Martin.

“How far are you appraising those letters, Martin? I’d like to finish filing them this afternoon.” Martin suppressed a sigh, forgoing all hope of rounding off his poetry. Never mind that Jon had only put him on the job yesterday, and he had it nowhere near completed. That’s what he got for slacking off, he supposed.

“Well- uhm,” he said, already dreading Jon’s inevitable criticism. “There’s quite a lot to go over, actually. I’m still waiting on the graphologist to get back to me about certain parts of the texts I-”

In an instant, Jon’s eyes snapped to the table. Martin stopped talking. Following his gaze he saw it lead to the little spider making its way over the table without a care in the world.

Jon got this look in his eyes and, oh geesh, Martin really hoped he wasn’t gonna eat the spider too. Jon edged around the table like a cat surrounding a mouse, moving closer to the little guy as if to sneak up on it. Martin averted his eyes with a grimace, already dreading the thought of watching Jon putting those long legs between his teeth. Jon was really, really handsome, but he did have that nasty habit of eating vermin. “Ehm, Jon, do you really need to-”

With an enraged snarl, Jon brought down the thick stacks of paper on top of the spider, murdering it without hesitation. 

“Jon!”

“Spider, Martin! Be careful.” He brought the stack up to his chest, inspecting the folder on the bottom now smeared with spider viscera. Jon made a face of disgust, as if he hadn’t himself caused the gore. “Did you see more?”

“Erhm, no. D-don’t think so.” Martin stammered, startled by the loud smack. Then he looked at the sad little spot on the paper. “Geesh, Jon. It was just a spider. No need to kill it.”

That earned him Jon’s unwavering attention.

“Martin, how much do you know about the work you’re doing?”

A moment passed for the question to sink in, and when he realized what Jon asked, Martin reeled back, his blood running cold at the sudden accusation. 

Jon must know he lied on his resume. He was a Beholding, of course it was just a matter of time before he found out. The internet told him they read minds to find out your deepest secrets. Stupid. Stupid Martin. You should’ve know. You should’ve prepared for questions. But why did he ask now, right after beating a little spider to death in front of him and- oh god, was the spider a metaphor? What had Martin done.

“I-I, uhh, uhh… What do you mean?”

“Well, obviously there’s a theme to the statements. Unexplained fires. Men wandering to their deaths at the sound of music. Humans puppeteered by magic strings.” He gave him a look as if that last one was supposed to mean anything important.

“Oh.” Martin visibly relaxed. He was talking about the contents of the work, not his missing degree. Way to have his heart clutched in his palm, Jon. “Well, yeah, I kind of figured they must all be related to dragons and their magic, especially since that Corruption dragon showed up the other day. Why do you ask?”

“Because surely you must have heard about the Spiders and their ilk. They steal your secrets, Martin. They’ll control your mind and eat you up if you’re not careful. You can’t trust any bloody spiders in this place.” He placed the papers on the table. Jon had that proper mad look in his eyes now. His eyeballs nearly popped out of his skull as he clutched Martin’s shoulders tightly, drilling the words into his brain. He scanned the table, looking for more spiders to kill, and when he couldn’t find any he squinted and looked under the table. 

"But Jon, they're tiny." He almost wanted to laugh if the idea of mind-controlling Dragons didn't make his skin crawl, no matter how cute he found spiders.

"The mother is always close by, Martin." Jon crawled on hands and knees while inspecting the underside of the table, causing Martin to shove his chair back with a groan to give him his space. "And she will not be so tiny."

"God," Martin said, at loss for words. Then curiosity got the better of him. "So what do they look like?"

He wanted to pull Jon up and tell him to stop freaking him out. He liked spiders. They were good for the ecosystem. He couldn't bear to think about horror dragons ruining his enjoyment of them. Martin clutched his chair, waiting for Jon to elaborate on his terrors.

Jon swatted at something under the table, then satisfied, crawled from under it, standing up in all his dishevelled glory. "Insidious," he answered, clapping his hands together to get the dust (or spiderwebs?) off. "They are huge and sometimes small, depending on whatever species has struck their fancy. They're bulbous, gluttonous, many limbed symbols of death. If you ever see one, Martin-" he looked him straight in the eye. "Pray to the devil that he may get you first."

_Frightened of the arachnid weaving its web,_

_Pulling its silken strands taught so it may steal your secrets_

_Is this what your scales are guarding against?_

Martin cracked an uncertain smile. "But we've got you to protect us, right?"

Jon looked sheepish at that, and went silent for a moment, a dark cloud passing before his eyes as the seconds dragged on excruciatingly. "You have my word, Martin." 

With the face he was pulling, this did not comfort Martin one bit. God, what if the moment came that they did have to battle an eight legged monster dragon? Jon cowering at the sight of its spider army. Martin clutching a sword to protect Jon from any harm, cutting off the self-regenerating limbs of the beast until he by sheer luck and the help of his friends finally managed to strike his blade through its rotten heart so that-

Right.

The only weapon Martin was able to wield was his pen. The notebook on his hip, his shield.

Maybe for the battle of love, that would be enough.

Jon’s eyes drifted off, interest in malicious spiders forgotten, and browsed the documents and Martin’s moleskine on the table. 

“A-anyways, I’m expecting to be done with the letters by the end of the week,” Martin said, eager to change the subject to something more mundane. 

Jon made no effort to hide his grimace, clearly not happy with the ‘delay’ as he looked over the letters. After briefly scanning the old documents, his hand wandered over the table and came to rest on Martin’s notebook, his interest piqued at the out-of-place object. Martin’s heart jolted.

“A-ah, no! Don’t- That’s mine, please,” he said hurriedly, reaching out to cover his little book of shame before Jon could open it. 

Jon quirked an eyebrow, his face handsomely supple as surprise overtook him. His hand felt solid and real under Martin’s for the briefest of moments before he jerked it away. Then he frowned again. Martin expected a snide comment from him about his shoddy work ethics, but he remained silent, almost as if fighting himself on something internally. 

Jon, when he wasn’t working intently or giving highly interpretable commands, usually looked like he was fighting himself. In the end, he always said less than he could have said, leaving Martin (and Sasha especially) horribly lacking closure to the conversation. Jon calculated what he said, kept the interesting bits about himself hidden and often left out details that might have made sense of the context of what he was talking about. It was as if he didn’t trust Martin (them, he corrected himself, not just him). Then he remembered what Jon said to him the first time he had seen him as a dragon. That he would not reveal the secrets they’ve been keeping for so long to humans.

But then there was the mental fighting outside of work-talk. Conversations Jon couldn’t seem to follow. Ones he lacked any context for, or details. References Sasha made that had him puzzled. Maybe the problem was etiquette? How long had Jon been posing as a human? Long enough to get human social cues? To know what he was allowed to ask and answer? Perhaps long enough to know when to keep silent, Martin wondered as he saw him fiddle with his fingers and scratch his jaw nervously.

Perish the thought, maybe Martin had to take the first step.

“It’s, ehm, poetry,” he said sheepishly, clutching the notebook to himself with the intent of burying it in his backpack as soon as possible. “I’m no Shakespeare, so I kind of don’t want anyone else to read it. Yet. Uhm… It’s really embarrassing.”

“Oh,” Jon said, frown still in place, but thinking it over. Then he nodded. “I see. If you like poetry, we have a statement regarding Wilfred Owen, among others... You may review it, if you’re interested in that, of course.”

If it was a statement, it would probably not contain any actual poetry, which was a shame. Martin wasn’t all that interested in war poetry either, but it was a nice gesture of him nonetheless. He placed his notebook on the chair next to him, far out of reach of Jon’s curious eyes. “Oh, uhm. Sure. Thank you.”

Jon nodded again, taking hold of his pile of documents and papers. Martin wondered what sort of hobbies Jon had. He didn’t know much about dragons, other than that they were creatures to be feared and had special talents and hoards and stuff. Did he like poetry too? 

It was on the tip of his tongue, but before he could ask this, Jon intercepted him. 

“In your own time, though,” he said. “I do need those letters filed as soon as possible.”

“Right.” Martin said. “Right.”

Message received. Martin pulled his laptop closer with more questions burning him up from within as he tried to redirect his attention back towards his work, his fingers twitching as they hovered over the keys. Oh, what the hell. If not now, then when? 

“Say, Jon?” 

Jon, who had turned around and made to leave, stopped in his tracks and cocked his head at Martin. His neck bend just a bit too crooked for a regular human. “Hm?”

“Why, uhm…” Martin wondered how he should phrase this, since he desperately hoped Jon wouldn’t take it the wrong way somehow. “How come you’re always a human?”

Jon was so awkward, seemingly much more now than before his big reveal, and Martin wasn’t so sure it was all a personality trait. The way he cocked his head, the way he rubbed his skin like a reptile using its claws to scratch an itch. He must be so much more comfortable as a dragon. And now that they all knew about him, why wouldn’t he roam the archives in a form that was more familiar to him? 

Jon looked at him as if it was obvious. “Because you’re scared of me?” he said plainly, but hesitantly. 

“Scared of you?” Martin said. Sure, that first time, maybe. But after that… 

Well, he hadn’t seen him as a dragon again after that. Hadn’t had the time to get accustomed to him with scaled skin, long teeth and burning eyes that looked like they would hurt more than the claws on his feet, because Jon hadn’t allowed Martin to see him like that anymore. Sasha had, one time, although that seemed a luxury even for her, not for her lack of trying. She definitely hadn’t come across as scared. The opposite, really. Jon met them as a human in the morning, and remained human as he sat in his office throughout the entire day.

“Yes. Has it slipped your notice that me and Tim haven’t been in the same room for two weeks now? I think he quite literally wants me dead.” 

Hearing Jon shrug it off like that had Martin’s heart aching. 

“Tim’s being a dickhead!”

Tim was vocal about his distrust of Jon. Martin heard him complain all the time, though far out of Jon’s earshot. He warned him and Sasha to leave, or at least keep their distance like Tim did, which got him in some heated debates with Sasha before he gave up. Tim didn't speak to them about killing anything, but with the way Martin saw him glance at Jon sometimes, he wasn’t surprised Jon interpreted it like that.

Jon averted his eyes, licking his lips. “You were quite scared too, Martin.”

Yes, Martin knew with guilt that he had been terrified for his life in that moment as his mind and body both told him he was facing off with a monster. His foreign form perched atop the wooden shelf, dark in the already darkness of the archive with only his eyes bright and piercing staring straight at him like a piece of meat, but which in retrospect didn’t look that much different from his usual unimpressed stare as an archivist. The slow crawl as he stalked over towards him when all he wanted to do was check up on Martin. His animal claws and sharp wings and long tail and wicked horns that were really only his physical attributes as much as Martin had his own arms and nose and fingers and blond hair. They were just parts of him, not the whole picture. 

He liked the Jon in front of him, really liked him a lot in a shuddering, heart sweltering way. It was only fair he had to know the other Jon too.

“Well,” Martin said decisively. “I’m not scared now. And I’m not Tim. Sasha isn’t either.”

“Know what you’re asking, Martin.”

Martin’s bravado faltered a bit. It wasn’t a favour Jon would have to do them or anything. He hoped Jon didn’t take it the wrong way. “Oh… I’m not really asking- I mean, I was just wondering? If you don’t want to transform you don’t have to. I was just thinking that maybe if we see you as a dragon more often, we’d get used to you?”

Jon considered it dubiously. Then he considered it as if it had never been an option before and Martin sold him a solid point for the first time since his employment. “Perhaps,” he said. His face scrunched up in that sceptic way of his that distrusted everything. “Don’t worry too much about it, Martin.”

But from the looks of it Jon was more worried about it than Martin was. Even now, with his eyes flitting across the work in his hand and the work on the table, he couldn't bear to give the encouragement any real consideration.

Jon shifted the work in his arms. “Anything else, or can I get on with my work?” 

Jon was always busy. Martin didn’t think he ever saw him take a break, gladly accepting Martin’s tea when he brought it to him, but never getting up and going to the breakroom himself. There was work, sure, but even Martin could find the time to slack off and write his poetry in between, and if Martin was frank, he didn’t think their work was that important. To Jon, maybe, because it was his hoard and he cared a great deal for it, but the deadlines practically meant nothing to the assistants or even the rest of the Institute. 

And he had him within arm’s reach now. If he let Jon go now, who knows when the next time would be that they could sit down and have a chat.

“Actually,” Martin began. “If you have the time?”

Jon begrudgingly sat on the end of the table next to him, his worked dumped heavily on the thick mahogany table. He loomed over him like this, and for a moment Martin was reminded of the beast high up on the shelves staring down at him too. 

“What do you want to know?” Jon asked bluntly, his legs crossed and arm leaning on his knee, all business like for as much as a human sitting his bum on a table could be. 

He must be reading his mind again, to know Martin was going to ask him personal questions. Or, wait, he had told him he couldn’t read his mind. “How do you know that?”

“Know what, Martin.”

“That I want to ask about you?”

Jon rolled his eyes. “Because you’ve been staring at me for a week now without saying anything. Unless you mean to burn my neck hairs away with your eyes.”

Martin had tried to not be so obvious. Most people ignored him, after all. He had always been easy to overlook, but nothing escaped a Beholding’s gaze, apparently.

“Oh… Right.”

“Listen- Martin. What I want to say is…” He rubbed his forehead in frustration. “It’s alright if you have questions. I’d rather have you ask me than go online and have it fill your head with nonsense.” Then he mumbled a, “those idiots don’t know half they’re talking about.”

“Like you being a mind reader?”

Jon scoffed at that. “Hah. Yes. Mind reading. It’s not like… We don’t do that, although some of us technically can, but it really depends on the personality and magic and such. I suppose some of my kind take a certain… satisfaction from it. In any case, there’s no nutrition in reading thoughts, and although I’m much more knowledgeable without my-”

“Wait, hold on,” Martin backpedalled. “Nutrition?!”

Jon looked sheepishly at him. “Ah, yes? I eat information?”

“You mean, you don’t just eat bugs?!”

Martin’s mouth was agape as Jon explained to him what exactly was so nutritious about information, and the archives being his personal hoard made so much sense now. He collected all the statements, the mysteries, the stories left behind by humanity for him to read and soak in, all that knowledge going through him and thus belonging to him, carefully tucked away in his archives. The insects that scuttled through the nooks and crannies of old pages weren’t his food. They were the honeydew in his five course buffet. 

“And the flavour you like is horror…” Martin said, processing it. 

“Don’t think of it as a genre, Martin,” Jon said. “We all feed on fear.”

Because there were other dragons that ate humans, Martin thought with a sudden clarity he hadn’t had in weeks. All dragons ate fear and humans were so full of it, as was evident by Martin’s gut reaction to back away from Jon when he saw him for real that first time. “How do we- uhm. How do humans not know this?”

“Apart from me, when is the last time you had a conversation with a dragon?”

“Uhh…”

“Right. It’s like I said before, we don’t like to give away our secrets. Humans already want us dead.” He scoffed. “Really, if you think about it, it’s kind of obvious that we like fear the best. You lot just think it’s all about the flesh, so if we don’t eat the humans, you’ll leave us alone.”

A shiver went through Martin’s spine. 

Even if Jon didn’t eat him outright, he fed on humans just the same. Not in the same way as the fire breathers, or the ones that drop you from canyons and towers. He laid people’s stories bare for the world to be seen for just the same reason.

It didn’t escape his notice that Jon bit his lips as if to suppress a flick of the tongue the moment Martin felt his anxiety spike up.

But… 

But Jon was different. He was smart, thoughtful, even if he was kind of a dick about it. He threw himself at his work he imagined any head archivist would do, not just because it fed him. He cared about being thorough in his research, even if it didn’t have anything to do with fears from what he remembered. What was there to fear in family trees? Or in the appraisal of new attributions in the forms of fictional stories? He had called the archives his job before his hoard.

“But that can’t be the only reason you don’t … you don’t eat humans. You care about us, don’t you?” Martin said. Jon toyed with something in his pocket, and from the clink of metal Martin assumed it was his lighter. Martin wasn’t fond of smokers, abhorred it really, until he had seen a glimpse of Jon smoking in the little indoors park of the Institute and couldn’t help but swoon at how cool he had looked. Thin white sig between the lips that scowled so often, the tension fading from his brows, his lidded eyes dimming the crazy he always seemed to carry with him. It made him wanna feel bad too and fire one up himself, then cough his lungs out because he had never had a smoke in his life.

“I owe it to you,” Jon said, meeting his eyes. It felt awfully directed at Martin, and he bit his lip to suppress a blush. “It’s the least I can do, feeling sympathy.”

“That’s why you go as a human,” Martin said, the little pieces of a puzzle fitting into place. It wasn’t just to calm his assistant’s nerves. He wanted to be closer to them, and understand them. In his own way, he was trying to relate.

“Conversations go a lot better when both parties look the same,” he said, ironic smirk on his face. “Or at least have the same height.”

“How long have you been a human?” Martin asked, internally cringing at the phrasing of the question. Jon wasn’t a human.

Jon pondered this. “About thirty years, give or take.”

“O-oh! Guess you’re the same age as me then, haha,” Martin joked, though Jon didn’t laugh. 

Even Tim only had him chuckling once or twice. Martin cursed himself. Try harder next or don’t try at all.

He gulped and wiped the meek smile off his face. “So, how old are you anyways?" Jon seemed old, if the grey touched hair on his temples and his vehement repulsion of everything ‘party’ was anything to go by.

Jon had to think this over too for a second. You would think a dragon hoarding knowledge would remember his own birthday. “I was born somewhere around the 1800’s?” Then he shook his head. “It’ll come to me later.”

“O-oh! Wow,” Martin said. “Two hundred years, wow. That’s a long time.” Jon shrugged, eyes unblinking. “I suppose it would be long for a human like me, hah. Is that old for you? I think the record of oldest dragon is, like, three thousand years or something like that. But that was one of the Vast and I dunno if there’s, like, a difference between species or something. Are you old?”

Jon gave him a look that he roughly interpreted as: ‘god Martin, stop it with all the questions, will you?’, and Martin shut his mouth and waited for his answer. 

“Hmm, not that old, no. The years didn’t exactly fly by, but…” He looked Martin over, then gave himself a brief glance down and quickly looked away as if he didn’t just check himself out. “You might be right. I think we’re the same age.”

“In dragon years!”

“Yes.”

“Huh,” Martin said. “Really. You look much older, what with your grey hair. Can you control what you look like?”

Jon brushed his nails over his temples, flattening his already neatened curls behind his ears. He often brushed his hand over his hair as if to compose himself. Not in a display of vanity or anything, but more as if he wanted to come across as presentable. Which to Martin, was a bit ridiculous because he always was, even if his shirts were a little rumpled. Did Jon own an ironing board? 

“When I created- erm, yes. To a certain extend. When I first transformed I had to envision what I looked like, but the magic did it’s work as well to fit something that matched my dragon appearance. And well,” he spread his arms. “Ta-dah.”

Martin frowned. “Dragon appearance? What do you mean?”

“Age plays a factor, for one. I have found out that my human form ages alongside my dragon body, though not by much. Plus you may have noticed I’m not the, ahem, biggest guy around town.”

The humour in Jon’s voice could send Martin into an epileptic shock. He didn’t think he had heard Jon say this much in all their time working together, much less talk so freely. And no, come to think of it, Jon had been rather small as a dragon, as was reiterated by Sasha who had privately gushed about how cute Jon had been when she got to pet him. That was another thing. She got to pet him. She got to pet. Their boss. 

Jon was a world uncharted. 

They kept talking for a bit before work eventually lured Jon back to his office. Martin found out he really did live in the archives, which confirmed his suspicion that Georgie had indeed stayed the night at Jon’s place, which put Martin’s heart into a headlock of jealousy and total despair. 

But, Martin thought to himself, it was him who had managed to peel back the curtains which cast away Jon’s secrets. At the end of the day he knew him a little bit better than he did in the morning. 

He was left to his own devices once again. With his head full of information he found work even more of a drag, the conversation turning over in his mind for the rest of the afternoon until the clock struck 5 and he was finally allowed to go home.

When he got into the tube it was full of commuters, the rattling of it jostling them all together like one big mass of uncomfortable closeness, but bound by the solidarity of the everyday life. A geriatric wizard (a pleonasm of it’s own since all wizards seemed geriatric to him), wielding a fake looking magic staff in one hand and balancing a heavy book in the other declared the end of all times through the close space, right after he conjured himself in the middle of the cluster of standing passengers with a thick, stinking puff of smoke, annoying the hell out of everyone he was squashing when he suddenly appeared. 

Martin - glad to have found an empty seat - sat and watched his wicked long beard sway with every foul sounding word he cast through the cramped space of the train. He had a mega long sparkly hat and his silken robes moved about him like a phantom, which the passangers next to him had to reluctantly accept as part of the traingoer's experience. Worse thing was that the wizard’s nonsense sounded like a better string of words than the poetry Martin had written today. The sentences had a certain flow to them as the voice of the wizard magnified their unintelligible contents, like it all really mattered. As if it was all really true. Martin hated to say that the conviction of the doomsday guy got him a little bit inspired. He reached into his bag to dig around for his moleskine-

Only to find it missing from where it should have been. His bag was painfully empty.

And Martin realized with a violent blush that he had left it on the chair. In Jon’s archives. Where he made his rounds every afternoon carefully checking if everything was in the order he left it in. Where his little book of longing could easily be found.

Right there on the tube, Martin wanted to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the original poem I had Martin write sounded too coherent and not funny enough. Also I'm no poet lol please roast me.
> 
> Under those glimmering specs of scales one hides,  
> Like a curtain, woven over hardened Manila, impenetrable.  
> Petals which obscure your visage as much as,  
> A lake ‘tween trees unbridled with knowledge,  
> A shimmer on the surface, a songbird caught by splashes  
> The ripples of the beholding that dwells in it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon does a lot of thinking. A little bit too much, perhaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very short chapter, but I wanted to post anything after two weeks of nothing, and the ideas in this chapter aren't very grand. Thank you guys so much for sticking around! even when the poetry's really bad.

"1787!"

With a hint of embarrassment, the date of his birth was the first thing that popped into Jon's mind as he stretched his long dark wings, freed of his coat. Now, with all of his eyes finally open, the information surged back towards him like the snap of elastic held taut for the entire time he spent as a human.

The date of his birth wasn’t very useful information. Jon didn’t care much for his birth, which is why he had completely forgotten it had happened in the first place before Martin brought it up. His hatching had been uneventful, slimy, and the first years of his life had been spent as an oblivious little reptile with a penchant for annoying the hell out of his peers with his questions and remarks when all they wanted to do was play and burn down villages, so to speak.

Nothing particularly of interest happened in his birth year, at least for dragons, whose entire lives were a flux of chaos and excitement already. Humans on the other hand had been amazed when they finally discovered the first two moons of Uranus in January, though any Beholding only had to cast their head upwards to know there were four moons more. They had named them Titania and Oberon after Shakespeare's play, which was exactly the sort of nonsense information that Martin might enjoy during small talk, no doubt.

An itchy spot near his horns warranted Jon's attention. As he scratched, he hoped a strip of dead skin would come with it, but when he pulled back his hand, nothing stuck to his nails. He used to moult around this time of the season for years, but he hadn't for about decades now and he should probably give up on his hopes of growing any larger than he was. He had always been and probably always would be small, it seemed. Georgie used to tower over him in her full draconic form, easily five times his size, but there were those who equaled mountains and canyons. It was a little frustrating to get condescending looks from other dragons, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Even his human form manifested as a small man, so magic clearly didn't work in his favour. Once, he had tried on Gerry’s platforms, though the badgering hadn’t been worth it.

Flapping his wings lazily, his wingtips reached from shelf to shelf with barely enough space for him to properly stretch. It made dust surge upwards, and his nostrils flared. 

His archive was tinged with a few new smells at the front rows. Unfamiliar handprints on paper, bringing with them the smells of humans. Fresh ink that memorialized the author’s lurid experiences to paper. His own magic that came to him so easily, which lingered on the forms, binding the fears to tangible material.

Wings still spread, Jon trotted over to a filing cabinet and pulled open the metal drawer with a grating noise and janky thud. He flicked his long forked tongue over the thin rows of manila, the many flavours of fear soaking through their contents as he happily lapped them up, tickling his senses. 

Underneath the permeating sensation of knowledge, they smelled of Sasha. She filed her documents with a good sense of duty, was Jon’s opinion of it. Neat and orderly. She was the only one who had been formally trained to become an archivist. In a way, she would be much more competent as a head archivist than him, if only for her people skills.

There were no statements he hadn’t already read in this drawer, but he liked to check up on them anyway. Make sure they’re in order if somehow Martin had gone rogue and messed it all up like Gertrude used to do when he wasn’t paying attention. 

Martin had been very suspicious today. His sudden interest in Jon, roping him into small talk when he should be on the job, and then there was that spider! It made him wonder if the Web was planning something and used Martin as a pawn to get to Jon and- 

No. Ridiculous. He slammed the drawer shut as he dismissed the thought. There were no spider webs in his archive, and if there were, he chased the little buggers down. Jon should stop being so paranoid towards his co-worker. Martin was an alright lad.

The smells pulled him across his archive as he did his daily rounds. Sniffing out the stinky but tantalizing smell of vermin and exterminating them before they could do any damage, indexing documents that threatened to decay because of mould or dry parchment.

He wished he had a nose like this when he presented as human, but like everything about his human self, his senses were spectacularly dulled. Sometimes he couldn’t help himself but stick his nose between the pages of a book and take a big whiff of it, but that was nasty and weird, and he’d rather die than be caught by his assistants doing those kinds of things. The staring was bad enough.

He followed the trail his assistants left behind, centred mainly around the huge wooden table at the front of the room. Jon had put Martin on a relatively easy task of appraising letters there. Nothing he could get carried away with; The man had a problem with editing when he went out to gather research, and he tended to bring back much more information than needed.

His nose pulled him towards the letters Martin had been working on as they were strewn across the wooden work table, though neatly placed back in their archival sheets. This was fine by Jon. God knows his own home was a mess with about a thousand projects scattered around the place, but the spot Martin had sat at smelled a tad too much like tannins for his liking. 

Standing on his hind legs, his wings spanning nearly the entire length of the table, Jon inspected the dark wood. He noticed the bitter smell of tea spilled this afternoon which was hastily cleaned up with a rag from the breakroom. His nose lead him further along the table. Little tea handprints on the corners of the old papers had hurriedly dragged the fragile documents away from the liquid. No real harm had been done, but Jon bristled at Martin’s clumsiness. 

Martin's nervousness lingered across the table. It was stronger than the fear exchanged by the two women in the letters, and Jon flicked his long tongue over the spot, nearly salivating at the promise of another meal. Anxiety was par of the course in his food, and Martin had an abundance of it.

But Martin wasn’t here, and he should not try to know things about his assistants without properly asking. His wings sagged before folding neatly against his side, and Jon pushed himself away from the table, landing his front feet on the wooden floor.

It was then that he noticed there was one chair coyly pulled askew, where upon its seat lay a single black notebook. His wings bristled.

Martin’s poetry, written in the cheapest moleskine they had because the more expensive ones were a tad too luxurious for him. It was thin, but well used. Martin had put it there to keep it away from Jon when he had come over to check up on his work. Work he _had_ been slacking off on, Jon realized heatedly as he picked up the book and flipped it open to see what had been so important. 

And he instantly slammed the book shut again. 

Rows upon rows of poetry and musings and observations, scrawled lovingly and sometimes fearfully upon the pages. 

What was he doing? This was private. 

And Jon shouldn’t pry.

As Jon brushed the rough skin of the book with his even rougher finger pads, he already knew what Martin had been writing about this afternoon. Him. The dragon that lurked in the lake of knowledge.

It was rather foolish of Martin to leave his belongings scattered around the archives. Did he want Jon to find it? 

"I ought to just leave it on the seat," he muttered to himself.

But this was his chance to find out what his assistants really thought of him.

Even though it only showed Martin's perspective.

Why did he want it hidden from him, when he already told Jon what was in it? What was it about himself that Jon wasn't allowed to know? Did he write little spells of hatred and frustrations about his boss? What was so important he had to write about instead of going to work like he told him to?

Curiosity won from courtesy and he opened the book on the most recently filled page with a washed out corner shop receipt from last month in its seam: tea, Band-Aids and Mr. Kipling cakes. Then his eyes fell onto the neat handwriting on the evenly spaced lines, and he opened his mouth to read.

“What do you obfuscate under those glittering scales? Like a sheep’s cotton curtain, woven over your marble statue. A glittering lake unbridled with knowledge, shimmers. A mere songbird toppled by the waves as the creature moves. There’s a dragon in the water there, beholding everything. Organizing its folders."

Jon grimaced at the words, for as much as his scaled face allowed it. 

"Hm," he said at the end of it. 

This was, objectively speaking, not very good poetry.

Must be the first draft, Jon thought. Just a scribble. Mixing up metaphors and simply throwing them out onto the paper before it was time to edit. Then again, Martin wasn’t the best at editing the work he was paid to do, so Jon couldn’t hope for too much. 

He looked at the scratched out sentence halfway through, the flowery words exchanged for others. Words to describe _him_. Petals of some sort.

A weird shudder crawled up his spine, and he snorted dismissively. He wondered if he made his appearance on other pages as well, and his magic told him that yes, he did. 

He closed the book with a firm pat, unwilling to venture any deeper into past writings, afraid of what else he might come across and what he would have to unpack.

He set down the book, then rubbed his scaled hands unsure of what to do. He could forget what he read? Or send Martin a text message informing him he left his book at work? But that would go too far. Martin wouldn't come back to the archives just to pick it up. He would worry all night about the idea of Jon looking into it or laughing at it and telling the other assistants, no matter how unlikely that scenario would be. It was better to leave it unattended so that Martin could find it in the exact spot he left it at the following morning. No forced interaction and awkward assumptions. 

Ignorance, Jon found, was something humans took great comfort in.

Jon decided he was done for the day and sniffed Martin's workspace one last time.

He set off to report to Elias - who stank, and always stank no matter how long it had been, of hemp. No human would be able to pick up on it, though. It was Jon's personal torture every time he stepped into the man’s office. He often pretended it was the smell of paper, like Manila fibre. 

Jon gave his report, but his head wasn’t with it. Worse than the smell of weed, were the words he read in Martin’s journal about ten minutes ago, and they lingered in his head as he spoke to Elias, who quirked his eyebrow in that way of his that told Jon he would like to know all about it. Screw him, Jon thought. He and his assistants were allowed some privacy.

When business was finished at last, he quickly cleaned out his nose with smells he _did_ like back at home. Threads of the Desolation case he was working on burned his nostrils with a different kind of smoke, and proved a nice distraction for at least a little while. Files on the Lonely had him reaching for higher shelves, putting his claws to good use as he climbed the sturdy wood to sniff out his collection, making sure everything was in order and nothing tried to vanish while he was gone. The Vast urged him to jump down to the other side of the room with a single weak flap of his wings, and he landed with a ungraceful thud amidst statements, video material, and newspaper cuttings about missing person reports and drownings.

Normally that would be enough, laying as content as a cat amongst his projects and feeding on the extended misery of others well into the night until he eventually tapped out of awareness, but now he looked at his organised mess of a home and rather felt like cleaning the place up. None of the murder cases caught his interest, nor did the arson newspaper cuttings spark any curiosity in him like usual beyond the distraction from Elias. Instead, Martin’s voice was sown onto the frontside of his brain, hammering him with the only sentences Jon had been impolite enough to read.

It was not like they were particularly interesting sentence structures, and the poem in its entirety hardly evoked any feelings at all despite the obscene amount of complicated words Martin so obviously struggled with to string together. For all that it was, it should not be sticking with Jon for as long as it had. 

Jon shook his head as he stood up, pacing through his studio as his heart unwillingly raced.

Martin and his questions. Martin and his uncertainties. 

And Jon with his secrecy. Jon and his distrust - at least, that was how Martin apparently interpreted it. He had not meant to be distant on purpose.

But Jon allowed himself to open up today as Martin overcame whatever barrier withheld him from asking questions, and he had satisfied his curiosity by striking up conversation. What a slow burn that had been. The nice prickling of Martin’s eyes on his back, waiting for an interesting story to be told just like Jon did. He hoped Martin saw him as a little less secretive, and hoped his assistants knew they could trust him.

_What do you obfuscate under those glittering scales?_

“Obfuscate. Really, Martin.” Jon put his finger on a sentence in today’s newspaper, entirely unable to process any of it.

If he allowed himself to analyse, obviously Martin was the songbird in the poem, toppled by the waves made by the monster lurking within the lake. Any movement, any information he let out breached their reality, too much for humans who knew nothing, entirely unprepared for the shift in the water’s surface.

Jon had no clue what the sheep’s cotton was about. Because he wore sweaters? 

Perhaps it was flattery, and Martin had purposefully left it behind on that chair for Jon to find, make him think he was a great softy so Jon would underestimate him, just like the others did, but this did not ring true. Perhaps it was Martin who distrusted Jon, and the tone of the poem was intended to read accusatory. Perhaps he read far too much into it.

_There is a dragon in the water there, beholding everything. Organizing its folders._

It sounded almost fond, if Jon allowed himself to indulge. It had not smelled of fear. He knew what Martin's fear smelled like: thick and tantalizing.

It was not accusatory, or fearful, nor had it been written and left for him as a grand scheme by the Spiders. 

Martin liked poems and tea and metaphors. He wasn’t one for 21st century poetry, and the words he used were gentle and flowery; much like him, Jon supposed.

Martin was an okay guy.

A songbird toppled by waves. 

Jon thought about that fact well into the night.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's fire training day.

When Jon woke up he felt far too comfortable. Piles of books rested heavy and secure against his back. In his talons he held folders as gently as a sleeping creature possibly could, the contents of which he had hungrily eaten for dinner the night before. His slender head was placed atop a low stack of binders, the slope of them giving his neck the bend it needed to make it feel like he wasn’t lying down at all, rather floating through clouds as he flew from dream to dream. He couldn’t even feel his body in this position.

He blinked lazily until he was aware enough to form a coherent thought. The first thing that came to mind was that something was wrong if he was waking up this well rested.

With a groggy head he rolled over, careful as not to disrupt his hoard, and checked the time. Of course, he overslept. And he had an important meeting with is assistants, too.

He snorted in annoyance, his nostrils flaring and his eyes scrunching up as he snarled. He gathered his four feet under him, shaking out his wings and flicking his tail.

Maybe he wouldn’t feel nearly as tired if he could sleep during the day, but having their boss doze off on the job was not going to inspire much motivation in his assistants. The most he could do as a human was stare dazedly in front of him like a maniac. Something about the human body felt so off, so defenceless when he slept. If a rogue assistant got the drop on him he couldn’t fight back that well. He slept so much better as a dragon, but he didn’t think Tim would appreciate coming across a slumbering dragon in the depths of the archives when he tried his best to avoid Jon even when he was human.

He turned on the faucet in his bathroom. It was more akin to a cave than a well maintained ceramic sanctum for bipedal humans, though it was much tidier than the rest of his paper-strewn studio. He let the stream gather in the sink and lapped at the water, then rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with a wet paw. He wished he had a larger basin somewhere out in the open air. He thought of himself by a lake, dipping his head under and letting the water roll off his back with his wings spread. A lake, unbridled with knowledge.

A pang of embarrassment shot through him as that phrase popped up in his mind, and he quickly finished cleaning up.

Already short on time, he briefly read the Metro on his phone to still his morning hunger, though the second hand news items usually tasted like dry crackers on his tongue. The reporters were too disconnected from the scenes to give the stories the right feeling of fear. Old newspapers tended to be a bit more involved in the empathy department. Much more adjectives. Nowadays a real tragedy had to have happened if Jon was able to pull a nutritious meal out of the articles.

Three sentences in he already wished he had picked from any other subscription in his list. Other newspapers would no doubt have given their stories much more meaning, but once Jon started reading it took great effort to stop himself, so he had to make do with another riveting article about the royal family. A bit sheepishly, Jon begrudged the lack of any homicide in it.

When he was done he pressed his long wings against his back and wormed himself into his sweater, then donned his leather coat. As the magic took its course, his dragon body rippled like a mirage. Scales turned over themselves, becoming dark skin instead of dark leather. Sharp horns softened into short brown curls, tousled with bed head. Inelegant reptile legs became sinewy and smooth as scales seemed to shift over his skin, elongating his limbs. His sharp talons shortened and turned from black to pink, harmless and efficient. And lastly, his eyes that were so huge and all-seeing – dark in a way that could suck any human’s gaze in and whose notice escaped nothing – turned small and a dull brown, perfectly ordinary. The ripples faded as quick as they had come, leaving a frazzled looking man in its place.

After raking a furious comb through his hair, he speed-walked from home to work on two clumsy human legs, his heavy shoulder bag bouncing against his side. He made a detour to the Institute’s library, and ten minutes past the time his assistants usually came in for work, he entered the archives, gasping for breath with a large pile of books and scrolls on fire and spellcasting in his arms.

“’Morning, Jon,” Sasha said, coffee mug in hand and sitting at the great mahogany table with her laptop in front of her. The screen showed her today’s agenda, and by the look on her face she dreaded it as much as he did. “Been running?”

Jon nodded open-mouthed and breathless. He dropped the stack onto the table. The scrolls toppled ungracefully. It freed his sore arms from the weight, but the strap of his heavy bag still dug painfully into his shoulder. “Overslept.”

“That’s a first.” She glanced at the clock on the bottom of her screen. “It’s only ten past nine, though. Tim only just came in too.”

Jon grumbled at that, none too pleased with that information.

“Don’t like being tardy.” He sank down on a chair to catch his breath. He let his hand fall onto his knee and placed his bag on the table.

Sasha nodded and took a sip of her coffee, eyeing the books. “You’ve never been late, I don’t think,” she agreed.

“I live close by. It helps.”

“Oh, do you live in the dorms, then?”

Jon huffed. “It’s not a dorm, exactly.” Then he mumbled, “more like a luxury cave.”

The Institute wasn’t part of any school, but housed a few students and staff whose conditions were a bit unconventional – much like Jon. Eric Delano had lived at the Institute for some time before he married Mary Keay and moved in with her, as well as Elias. As they were dragons, their rooms were as spacious as they could be in the Institute, built with wingspan in mind and the need to stretch their legs. For Jon, who was a bit smaller than the average dragon, his home felt cavernous at times. It was why he liked to fill it up with bookshelves, and kept the interior as it had been furnished for him instead of pushing it all to the side so he could make a giant nest out of his books.

He really wished he could roll around in a good pile right now.

Sasha raised her eyebrows over her mug. “A luxury cave, huh.”

Jon nodded, his eyes drifting off in thought.

They sat in silence for a moment. Soft footsteps echoed through the hallway, coming to a halt in the doorway. A friendly face poked out.

“Oh- there you are!” Martin held two cups of tea against his index fingers, which he undoubtedly intended to share with Jon by the way he had one hand outstretched. “‘Morning, Jon.”

“Good morning, Martin.” Though Jon wasn’t much of a tea drinker, or drinker of anything in general when he was a human, he could do little more than accept the cup after nearly a month of being subjected to Martin’s gentle offerings. He had to admit, it didn’t taste half bad. “Thank you.”

As soon as his fingers touched the ceramic, he let out a yelp as it nearly scalded them, and he quickly placed the tea on the table. “Stupid hands,” he muttered the same time Martin said, “oh, sorry”. Internally he cursed that it wouldn’t have happened if he had his normal, padded hands.

He wished he was still lying on his pile at home, taking the time to read the news instead of rushing through it. He could already feel weariness overtake him, and there would be no eating for as long as he was human. At least, no food that was any good. Maybe if he searched for some silverfish it would still his hunger some.

“Slow morning?” Martin quipped. He had the hint of a smile on his face, like he was unsure if he was allowed to laugh at Jon’s misery.

“Very,” Jon said, flexing his fingers. He ought to get back to work. Grimacing, he leaned over the table and blew on his tea. “So, as you may have read in your e-mail, we have fire safety training today.”

Sasha immediately sighed deeply at the news while Martin nodded dejectedly. Jon shared their sympathies. Fire safety day was cumbersome, in that it withheld him of his real work.

“I know. But it is mandatory for all staff members to be present. Speaking of- can someone fetch Tim?”

“Ah, I just saw him in the breakroom,” Martin said. “I’ll go get him.” And he took off.

Which left Sasha and Jon to lament the upcoming dread of fire safety training.

“You know,” Sasha quipped. “If I were less of an upstanding assistant I would’ve called in sick.” She took a big gulp of her coffee.

“You’re too competent, unfortunately.”

“Ah, things you love to hear from your boss. Not to gossip, but I’m surprised to see Tim came in today.”

Jon hummed noncommittally. “I’m surprised to see him every morning.”

Sasha shrugged. “Ah, well.”

They sat in silence, both knowing fully well the situation with Tim. He did his job just fine, even took an interest in digging through old statements and documents on his own, but that was about it. He did not talk to Jon like he used to in that first week, or even looked at him directly. He only sent e-mails if he really needed something, like clearance to closed stacks, and never replied to any messages from Jon’s side. He was present through the work he delivered, preferring field research to staying within the Institute for fear of running into Jon. And when Jon did see him, he looked about ready to jump. Even the banter with Sasha or Martin had stopped.

They ought to have a talk. A good talk wherein Jon could explain the situation to him, and wherein Tim could tell him what exactly it was that bothered him about the fact that Jon was a dragon. Because Jon hadn’t eaten him yet, or even shown him his real form, so what was it exactly that Tim was so frightened by?

“You’re keeping it short, right? Tim and I have sat through more than enough fire drills to last us a lifetime.”

Jon turned it over in his mind, downing his cooling tea. He had quite a few books to get through, but no, he supposed it wouldn’t take too long. “Shouldn’t last more than a day.”

“Okay, that’s the opposite of short.”

“Well, we do have quite some material to go over.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Ugh. Alright. Due diligence and all that.”

When Martin brought Tim in, it resembled a mother dragging her disobedient child by the neck. Tim could almost have been scowling were it not for the pure disregard aimed at his boss, as if anything but neutrality would give away that he’d much rather have his hands wrapped around his throat. Martin looked quite bothered, eyebrows furrowed with a little crinkle on his forehead.

Jon almost felt guilty for them, but mostly he just felt like an underpaid teacher as he gathered them around the table while he stood at its end, overlooking them.

“As you know, we are going over our bi-annual fire safety procedure.”

Tim’s temple rested against his knuckles, and looked like absolute hell, like he couldn’t believe he had to sit through this. His gaze was fixed on a point behind Jon, deliberately avoiding looking at him.

Martin let out an undeserved, “oof”.

And Sasha just looked the normal amount of bored.

“Please pay attention. You are required to cooperate with each other and co-ordinate our fire emergency measures. As your employer I always retain responsibility for the safety of my employees, but it would help me out a great deal if you abide by our rules for the sake of the people you work with.” He gestured lamely to the three of them – rather unnecessary because who else was he speaking to?

God, he hated fire training day.

“Now, first off: I would be happy to talk to you about our fire exits, if only we had them. As it is, we currently have only one way out of the archives, which means we’re fairly screwed if the fire blocks our path.”

This was interrupted by an, “oh, no,” from Martin.

“Don’t blame me, blame the architect who designed this Institute before England had building regulations. We do have a ladder lying around in case we have to climb out of a window, but for the last two hundred years I have failed to see its purpose as we are located in the basement.”

Martin made a ‘fair enough’ gesture, which went appreciated since it’s nice to know your audience was listening to you.

The same couldn’t be said for the next half hour as they went through all sorts of lacklustre material. He showed them the fire exits in the rest of the Institute, pointed them towards the fire suppressants in the archive (three including the one in artefact storage and the breakroom), went over the exit routes, and threw in a couple of dry jokes – which nobody laughed at – to keep them alert. The bolted door inside his office went unmentioned, as it would only worsen the situation.

“If you notice a fire, use the fire extinguisher first before you try to evacuate. I cannot stress enough how important it is that we keep the documents in mind-“

Tim scoffed at that.

“-when faced with a threat. Which brings me to our next topic-“

He placed his hand on ‘Spellcasting for Dummies’ on the table. What they would be doing for the rest of the day would be infinitely more interesting.

“Who here uses magic?”

Now this got their attention as their heads visibly perked up.

Magic was a fickle thing. Humans either had a gift for it or couldn’t use it at all without the aid of an artefact. For Jon, magic was steeped in fear, but humans used it in completely different ways, more like a fancy commodity instead of a terrifying thing that fed monsters like him. He hadn’t so much as glanced at their CV’s, so it might go either way.

“I’m not a magic user,” Sasha said, lifting her hand, “but at my Krav Maga classes-“

Before she could speak any further, Tim placed a firm hand on her arm. The look he gave her was that of pure worry. The look he then gave Jon was of confusion more than anything. “Are we out of our fucking minds?” he said. “Don’t give him all of this… this info.”

“Tim,” Jon said calmly. “I assure you this is for your own safety.”

“And why in the hell are you about to teach us magic?”

“Tim-“ Sasha tried.

“Because I don’t want you to die in a fire,” Jon said, on the verge of agitation, his hunger suddenly settling like a stone in his gut. He would have snarled, if he weren’t so busy keeping his human face under control.

Tim narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, because fire’s not really your style, I’ve heard. You just want to get to know us better. Seriously, guys, what’s not clicking here?”

A chill shot up his spine, but Jon decided to ignore whatever implications lay behind Tim’s words. He hadn’t done anything wrong for as far as he could tell, and this animosity between them was getting out of hand. Jon didn’t want him riling up their co-workers, and if Tim really had that much of a problem with him, he should just quit-

Well, preferably not quit the Institute. At least discuss his issues it with Jon.

“My style is staying calm and trying to get on with our fire safety training.”

“Please, Tim,” Sasha said, placing a gentle hand on Tim’s.

“This is ridiculous,” Tim said.

That, Jon could agree with. “It is mandatory for archival assistants to learn basic magic in case of an emergency. It’s a rule that has been in place for decades and it is simply good practice to have spells on hand no matter the emergency. Like I said, Tim, it’s for your own sake.”

“Just go with it, Tim. It’s not like we’re using dragon magic.“ Sasha turned to Jon, “it isn’t dragon magic, is it?”

“These are human books from the library,” he said, rejecting the notion of humans using the kind of magic that belonged to dragons.

“See?”

Tim still didn’t like it. He scowled and took his hand away from Sasha’s grasp. “Fine. Get this over with.”

“Gladly,” Jon said. “Now, there’s only one or two spells I really want you to nail down. Since we only have three fire extinguishers in total, I would like you to conjure co2 or high pressure foam, though co2 is preferred. If you feel comfortable with your magic ability, we can try to bend fire, though we’ll have to relocate somewhere less flammable.”

“Erm, Jon?” Martin said sheepishly at the end of it, his hand tentatively raised. “I can’t really use magic.”

“Ah, yes. I thought that might be the case for some of you. Hold up your hand.”

Martin held out his hand as Jon dug into his pocket. Jon then placed his fist over his open palm. When he opened it, dirt fell out.

“Aha. Uhm.” Martin had a puzzled frown on his face.

“It’s magic earth. It helps with casting these spells.” Jon wiped his hand on his sweater. Though humans called co2 and foam elemental magic, their true purpose was to suffocate the flames. Therefore it should obviously have been labelled with the Buried. Jon very much disliked the international “official” archival system for spellcasting, which was terribly biased towards humans. “Keep it on you at all times. Or at least when you enter the archives.”

“But- uhm,” Martin stumbled. He frowned at the little pile of dirt in his hand. Crumbles fell down the sides and onto the table with every minor shift of his arm. “Thank you, but do you maybe have anything else? This will just make my clothes dirty.”

“You’ll have to do with this.”

Martin sighed. Seeing no way to go against Jon without it turning into an argument, Martin complied, placing the earth in his breast pocket defeatedly. “I guess this is my work shirt now.”

“Anyone else?” Jon asked, hand held up with a new batch of dirt.

Sasha eyed it for a second, then said, “would it still work in a plastic bag?”

Have the dirt enclosed in a tight space, hm. Jon thought about it. “Oh, it would like that, wouldn’t it?”

“What?” Martin said confused.

“Yes,” Jon said decisively. “I supposed it will work just fine.”

“Oh, come on,” Martin breathed, glancing at his dirt filled pocket.

Sasha got up. “We got a roll in the kitchen cabinet. Hold on.”

Sasha went off and returned with the roll, and the rest of the dirt in Jon’s pocket was distributed amongst the three of them in decompressed little plastic bags. Martin fumbled with the dirt in his breast pocket and got as much as possible into a plastic bag. Tim was reluctant but accepted the dirt as well.

“Right. So-“ Jon picked up the book for dummies and flipped through it. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him. Spells and words and emotions weren’t exactly the conduit he used for his magic. He hardly had to think about how he used his powers, as it happened more or less in the blink of an eye. “There’s some spells here…”

He looked at it for a bit. Unable to get any further with it, he discarded it towards his assistants.

“There’s emotion and intention… Frankly, it’s better if you have a go at it. I can’t use this sort of magic.”

Tim glanced at him, his eyes sharp.

“What type do you use?” Sasha asked.

“A different kind,” he said curt. He wasn’t cross at her for asking, she was just curious. But he didn’t like the look of Tim’s eyes, waiting for him to reveal things about himself that he might not be able to defend. They knew he was a Beholding. Martin knew he fed on information, on fear. However his powers manifested through that was not for them to know.

Sasha shrugged and let it go, it not being the first time their boss had been elusive about his dragon business. She could guess.

Martin had the book for dummies in front of him, snapping his fingers with a gloom expression on his face. “I don’t think the dirt is working, Jon.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

Jon, who was not a big man by any means, suddenly felt very tall as he looked over Martin’s shoulder like an involved schoolteacher. He had the book open on the first page, a simple introduction to the world of magic where, if you had a predisposition for it already, you only had to snap your fingers while thinking of flowers for them to appear in your hand.

“I’m trying to get those flowers,” Martin said, “but nothing comes out. You’d think flowers _love_ dirt.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” Jon said. “Sorry for not clarifying, people. The dirt won’t conduct all magic. It is only meant for spells that are used to choke.”

Ignoring Martin and Tim’s surprised faces, Jon picked up a book on wind elemental magic – internally scoffing at how terribly mislabelled it was – and opened it up on the right page.

His assistants leaned over the table to have a look.

“Now, this one is actually a bit illegal. Nitrous oxide is dangerous when inhaled as it stops oxygen from flowing to the brain, but as you might have guessed this also means that it will suffocate fires, so you’re still allowed to use it in emergencies.

“I suggest you read through the basics and familiarize yourself with the material before you try to cast anything. We’ll see how far we get after the break, though I’ve planned the entire day for this.” Unfortunately.

Jon hated fire safety training. It took up a good chunk of the work day, nothing of value got done, and his assistants were usually so bored they hardly paid attention to what he said. Unless, of course, if they had something to do. He learned that trick a while ago, though it had come to bite him in the ass a couple of times. Give a human a knife and expect them to use it.

But Martin and Sasha wouldn’t do anything so rash as, say, kidnap him for ransom money, or try to kill him because they thought his species was a blight on the earth. There was a risk involved in teaching magic to his assistants as he had learned from their predecessors, but regulation was strict and Jon didn’t feel like putting up with Elias about it.

Point is, Sasha and Martin could handle themselves with a little bit of power. Tim, on the other hand, was sat on a pendulum, a constant irregularity in the hallways of the archive swinging from elusive and docile to snapping at any wrong word and ready to defend himself.

So of course it had to be Tim who had a talent for magic.

Perhaps his constant heightened emotions were something for the magic to root within, because when they started casting their first spells Tim’s magic surged forwards with a puff and a hiss, forcing the four of them to wave thick clouds of gas away, huffing and coughing all the while.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell?” Tim’s voice trembled from the cold, as did his hands before he rubbed them against each other for warmth. The white fog slowly disappeared as the magic left the air, and Jon could see that the high from the gas must have gotten to Tim, because his pupils were blown wide with ecstasy. “Feels like my head is spinning.”

“Be careful with that,” Jon said.

“Wow,” Martin said with a drawl and a grin on his face. “That was, wow.”

“Nice going!” Sasha said, and Martin nodded. Their smoke had manifested as far smaller puffs, though much more controlled. She failed to supress a giggle. “Look at you, magic man.”

“Didn’t know I could do that,” Tim said dazedly, staring at his hands, pale with melting frost. “Fuck, that hurt.”

“Get that under the warm faucet,” Jon said, and was promptly ignored. “It might be best if you don’t use this spell anymore. Wouldn’t want you getting frostbite.”

“How did you get it to make that much?” Martin asked.

“Hell if I know,” Tim said with a pensive look on his face, a stark contrast to the grinning faces of his co-workers, “but I think I’ve had enough for today.”

There was no sense in keeping him any longer, and though it left a bitter taste in his mouth see him leave before his shift ended, Jon allowed it, feeling another argument coming up if he didn’t. Martin and Sasha, thankfully, didn’t mind practicing, and though they were hardly world wonders with their conjuring, they got the hang of it eventually. Martin held a pile of foam in his hand and squeezed it next to his ear to hear the white noise of it.

A good day, all in all, even if Jon got no work done and skipped out on lunch. Training was noted in the Logbook, and he cast off his human form to do his daily rounds and finally get something proper to eat.

Curled against the leg of the table sat a small silver wyrm, wings stiff, frozen mid-crawl.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Jon have a talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the 300 kudos!
> 
> This is a long chapter, Tim focused. This one also earns the unreliable narrator tag. It will have a little bit of body horror towards the end, but no characters will be harmed. Why did I think this could be a fluff and humor fic? Why? Why?
> 
> Note: i forgot about joshua gillespie, the coffin guy. The gillespie's mentioned here are unrelated.

Tim used to get nightmares so bad he’d shake awake, afterimages of wretched and contorted faces floating like paisleys on his ceiling, colourless, and grinning down at him with loose skin hanging off teeth and wicked eyes, twisting in and around each other until they dissipated into the dark. He kept his ears sharp during those hours, every noise a threat outside of his bedroom window. His heart would race, his hands clamping against the sheets because if he let go it meant he would join the monsters willingly, just like his brother, his hand outstretched towards a plastic talon and wicked wooden smiles. Sleep would not find Tim until the early rays of dawn broke through his curtains, chasing the nightmare away.

Clutching the sheets had turned into tossing and turning. Tossing and turning became a defeated sort of lying still as the events from years ago played over in his mind like an old misremembered movie from a copied-over tape. He slept better nowadays. In the morning he took his pills to calm his nerves and hoped his boss wouldn’t randomly rip his own face off to show him the reptile that hid underneath.

He wondered whose face it had once belonged to anyway.

Tim often considered the possibility that Martin had lied about having seen the dragon and that Sasha and him were playing some sort of sick game with him. As soon as that thought bubbled up though, he realised how out of character that was for at least Martin, and he dismissed it. Martin had looked about ready to fucking pop when Jon spoke to them that one morning, the shock of having seen a dragon lurking within the dark of the archive just the day before evident on his face. Martin wasn’t a good liar.

Jon never spoke about it. As if the disappearance of Tim’s brother had not been real, all in his head. As if that part of Jon was not real. Or at least, not meant for Tim’s eyes. A secret to be glared at. A secret that smirked back at him, knowing Tim could never reach the satisfaction of being left alone but tortured for knowing it in the first place. Worst thing was, Sasha and Martin pretended like nothing was wrong.

“What are we gonna do about him?” he had said at some point, gathering them all together in the breakroom out of earshot from the monster, voice hushed and conspirative.

“About who?” Martin said, who failed to read the urgency of the situation.

“Jon,” Tim said, blunt. That’s when Sasha had sighed and rolled her eyes.

They weren’t interested in what he had to say. Sasha had a cousin in police that worked with Hunt dragons so she tried to argue with him about different species or something, and Martin was so arse over heels enamoured with the beast it made Tim gag even thinking about it. They didn’t know what dragons were capable of. Even after telling Sasha everything he understood had happened to his brother she only looked at him with pity in her eyes, sorry for his loss, but unable to connect it to something that Jon might do.

She was a scaredy cat, he knew she was. So why didn’t she look more worried?

They said they understood. Sasha an avid reader who followed the news technically knew about the dangers of dragons, and Martin went quiet whenever Tim brought up that first encounter, which told Tim he knew pretty damn well how bad it could have gone had Jon been less merciful. But they made it clear that if there was something to be done about Jon, Tim would have to do it on his own, possibly against them.

He hated Jon. But despite this, he also knew he was one of Jon’s favourites. Sasha and him worked decently and got good results. Neat reports, sufficient evidence and supplemental material for the statements, deadlines were met reasonably within borders. Martin on the other hand often got the short end of the stick, subjected to Jon’s none-too subtle scorn and dismay whenever he brought him the wrong information.

And that’s what it all came down to, wasn’t it? Information. Perhaps it was a game to their boss. Make them gather as much useful information as possible and giving Martin a hard time whenever he couldn’t deliver. And as a reward for such good behaviour, Jon would then proceed to eat up Sasha and Tim, sucking in their knowledge or whatever and leaving Martin behind to watch like a punished dog until new assistants arrived and the cycle started all over again. Trapped forever in the archives until he could deliver, forced to watch his colleagues be swallowed as a joke, or as dinner, marinated in the torture of others.

Or something like that. When Tim felt particularly bitter, he imagined that Martin with his freaky little crush would be perfectly happy living the rest of his life as a pet on that beast’s lap. But that wasn’t fair. He was a victim as much as Sasha, even if they didn’t know it yet.

Their lives were like a slow-cook torture scheme. Tim had no idea what Jon wanted, which is why he continued to deliver on his job as his assistant – in case Jon tired of him, and the cold war between them became nuclear. All he had was theories, and he had to live by them strain by strain, wondering when the other shoe would drop.

* * *

There was one advantage of working in the institute, though.

The internet was notoriously unreliable when it came to researching dragons. Not to mention, the only information he had on Jon was that he was a Beholding, rare and ravenous for information, which checked out. Jon was a real freak about his archives. But besides that he couldn’t make much of the information available to the public. Conflicting forum posts, dramatized news articles, barebones wiki articles, even the odd coroner’s report did very little to expand his research. It was like every valuable piece of information was kept hidden, locked away from humans who might use it against them.

The archives on the other hand opened up more information than Tim could have ever dreamt of.

Apart from a few boxes, Jon nearly approved all his requests to access old cases and documents, and those he didn’t approve, Tim got in anyways.

There was one word he had learned to look out for. When he first started working in the archives, it hadn’t meant much. The way Jon labelled all documents made very little sense to him at first, and it wasn’t like the rest of the Institute abided by the same terms. They seemed contained within the archives, used only by Jon for his own benefit.

After a month of familiarizing himself with the archive, he picked up fourteen terms he could ascribe to dragons.

‘Stranger’, in particular, was one he looked out for the most. ‘Eye’ was a close runner up.

He considered the idea that Jon knew exactly what he was looking for and gave him that freedom so that he tasted better at the end of their waiting game. Mostly he felt nervous as he dug through statements and police reports, waiting to be caught any moment as he pulled out as much folders he could without raising suspicion.

Not all of the documents were about dragons. The Stranger, it seemed, varied between illusory magic to dragons to simply making inanimate objects move. And not all mentions of circuses had the label ‘Stranger’ attached to them, not completely surprising since circuses were usually a great way for all sorts of wizards and magic users to flex their showmanship. But still, Tim dug through the rows of filing cabinets and shelves that expanded far into the depths of the archive, looking for more, anything that could help him find the ones that killed his brother so he could return the favour.

And once he had enough he should burn the whole fucking archive to the ground.

Pretty feasible, since apparently Tim had a knack for magic.

As soon as he got home after what Jon called ‘fire safety training’ (but which undoubtedly was some sort of ploy to stuff them full of weird information so he could feast on them later), he discarded the plastic bag of dirt onto the table. Whatever magic was in there that turned his fingers into little gangrene sausages, it better stay the hell away from him before he did some more research. He called up his Mum, asked about any wizards or witches in the family, dug around on the internet, and found out that yeah, there were some magic potent family members tucked away in his family tree somewhere. Nobody too grand, but hey, it wasn’t like Tim had ever accidently turned the air into toxic nitrate before.

On and off throughout the days he dug around some more on the internet for information about magic artefacts, especially earth, and found not a lot of evidence that dragons used it for nefarious schemes or anything. There were some who could be found living in it. Then again the internet was shit so maybe he had to look into the archives some more. ‘The Buried’ seemed a fitting tag.

“’Emotions are an important part of magic, because they help us focus our intentions. Don’t be afraid to have feelings!’” Tim read from a borrowed library book on elemental magic, the bag of dirt once again in his hands. He found the language a tad too condescending, but what else would you expect from a beginner’s handbook to magic.

Throughout the days he experimented with what he had. See what else he could do, how much power he really had. Small spells, though, just in case the dirt tried to choke him after all.

The gas spell they had used at work was illegal, so he didn’t try that one at home.

Conjuring more dirt proved a bad idea, because it quickly filled up his hand, forming clumps around his fingers so tightly it cut off the blood flow. When he was done panicking and finally got the damn stuff to fall off his numbing fingers, he found that it wouldn’t dissipate like the other elements had.

The water spells were embarrassing, because they wanted him to sing. It was also a bit naff that it made his Swiss Cheese plant turn yellow and his succulents all soggy.

And fire…

Well, he had floorboards to worry about, and a landlord. He kept it in the back of his mind.

* * *

Tim considered himself a social guy, easy to interact with. This wasn’t bragging, it’s just who he was.

That said, he didn’t know his neighbours all that well. Apart from the occasional bump into in the hallway and a quick “how are you?” he rarely saw them, much less spoke to them.

His closest next-door neighbours were the Gillespie’s.

Last night, in the near silence of the city, a dragon had broken into the Gillespie’s home. There was no crash that woke Tim up, nor any screaming from the couple, or a bestial roar that claimed the humans to be its. He had just woken up with a strange premonition, the night too silent for a city as busy as this one, finding himself in a pocket dimension where time had stopped just for him, so that he could wake up and see what was going on.

A black shape curved halfway out of the Gillespie’s bedroom window with its talons resting against the brick, wings spread in near flight, holding a body in its mouth. Dead silent in the dead of night, the only audible sound the soft scraping of claws on brick and the heavy wind catching beneath wings as the beast prepared to take flight. The wind hadn’t been blowing that hard, right? How could a dragon come and go like that? Who allowed it to?

Tim ducked his head away from the window, afraid to be spotted as his heart raced. The dragon didn’t pass his side of the wall when it took off. It just disappeared into the night sky while the bustle of the city resumed and the soft crying of his neighbour was cut off by a sharp shutting of the window, a finality to the weird, gut-churning moment that had just passed. Only then was Tim brave enough to relax his body from its tense stance against the wall, waiting for the beast to leave. He made a quick visit to the bathroom before going back to sleep.

He had been sick, his neighbour. Some sort of terminal illness they had been too private for to openly talk about, not that he was entitled to that information anyway. It was the one thing he really knew about the couple, overheard from conversations of people who were much closer to them. He ought to give Mrs. Gillespie a visit, he thought in the moments before he fell asleep. Call the police or help her get her bearings.

He didn’t in the end. He was a social guy, unequipped to handle private matters like that no matter the rage he felt on their behalf.

When he passed Jon’s office that morning, he thought of them.

“I wonder why she’s doing it,” Sasha said offhandedly, flipping through her stack of copies and fishing out the ones she made for Tim.

He shrugged, taking the offered papers. “She’s got worms in her brain, Sash. Oh- sorry, _wyrms_ ,” he said, making a face at the emphasis. “Don’t know what I would do if that were me.”

“Yeah but still. I can’t help but feel bad for her. Did you read her original statement?”

“Yeah.” Tim had been assigned to keep track of any mentions of Jane Prentiss. News reports, police statements, victim tally. Any update was to be copied and added to her file, which was rapidly thickening between the other, much skinnier folders. Of course he read her statement. Despite his looks, Tim was thorough. “She came back to the nest.”

“I don’t think you can fault her for that.” Typical Sasha, always the empath. “The Hive did some weird brain stuff to her. What if they brainwashed her?”

“Brainwashed her into transforming into a dragon?” He scoffed as he sorted the papers she handed to him by date before stapling them all together. “Last time I heard, humans can’t do that.”

“I don’t know. Jon turns into a human every morning.”

He placed the stack flat on the table and looked up at her.

“That’s because our boss is an evil face-stealing monster who wants nothing more than to trick us into thinking we’re part of his merry band and fatten us up with information until we’re ready for the spit roast.”

Wow, that came out in a rush. It was almost as if he had repressed feelings about the man.

He could tell by Sasha’s expression that she wasn’t having it, though. She had her arms folded over her frilled top.

“If he really was evil don’t you think you would’ve been collecting his news reports instead of the lady who, oh I don’t know, actually harms people?! Besides, I’m pretty sure you’ve dug into more statements than Martin and me combined, so have fun on your spit roast next week. I’ll ask Jon to leave some for me. I’ve always wanted to try cannibalism.”

It would’ve been a decent joke in any other situation, and he wanted to laugh about it so badly if there hadn’t been a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that this was the exact scenario that awaited him.

Instead, he frowned. “You think he knows what I’m doing?” It definitely worried him. If Jon found out what he was doing he might want to protect his friends and kill Tim on the spot. On the other hand, he had allowed him to roam the archives almost as much as he wanted.

“Hell if I know. You’re definitely dodgy, but you’ve been that for weeks so what else is new. I don’t think he can read your mind while he’s like this, though. Human, I mean.”

“Or maybe that’s what he wants you to think.”

“Tim,” she sighed. “How long are you going to keep doing this?”

He met her eyes. “Until he ‘fesses up.”

She shrugged her shoulders, humouring him. “’fesses up to what?”

“That underneath that fake librarian act he insists on putting up he’s a monster.”

She actually laughed at that. “You clearly haven’t seen him. You do know he’s knee-height, right?”

“What?” That small? He had been picturing a monster spanning the length of the ceiling, easily double his size.

“Yeah. We told you, he’s harmless. He’s like –“ she measured it out in front of her. Knee-height but long. “Comes up to my shoulders? Really long neck.”

It felt like a punch to the gut. Picturing the reptile next to Sasha, its face so close to hers with its cold hard scales and long sharp teeth at throat level, dragon grin eager to snap around her soft flesh as she stood pliant before him, her full trust between his jaws; it made his blood run cold.

“Seriously,” she continued, “you guys have to talk it out. See for yourself how big and scary he is.”

She was right, he realised as dread settled in his gut. He had to see for himself. He had to know.

Curling his palm against the compressed ball of earth in his pocket, he made his decision.

* * *

A voice called out to him like a dagger to his back.

He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. The both of them had perfected the art of avoiding each other. Diver around shark, waiting for any wrong move, the flash of teeth, the glint of an incisor. Two creatures with power and leverage of their own. Ripples in the water.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jon’s scrawny body emerged like a shadow from between the deep rows of the archives. Jon sometimes held his body with a slight bend to it, hunched up in that long leather coat that shielded him from the invisible rain within the archives. It made him look even smaller when he did that, his eyes peering out into the distance, seeing things that Tim couldn’t.

A Beholding. That implied he was a watcher, though a watcher of what he didn’t know. It made him rub the pocket that held the choking dirt in it and wish he had tried out fire magic after all.

He turned to Jon with casual apathy.

Jon held his shoulder straight, almost tense as he faked composure and authority. His eyebrows were raised in a mimicry of polite human interest. It was the softest expression Tim had ever seen on that stolen face, which instantly sent off alarm bells.

“I-“ his boss began, “we need to talk.”

Tim bristled, a series of bad breakups flashing before him. He glanced around the room to see if there was anyone there to back him up. He found Martin working at the table, his head cocked just slightly to the side as if he was listening in on them.

“Suppose we do,” he said.

“Right,” Jon said and cast a glance towards Martin too. “Should we go to my office?”

And run the risk of having the door close behind him? No thank you. And then there was the matter of that other door in there, the one tucked between two book shelves almost as if to hide its oddly vibrant colours in between the inoffensive browns of the office. Tim had never seen it open, didn’t know where it lead. What if that was where he took his victims?

“I’m doing alright in the doorway,” Tim answered, crossing his arms just so his hands were kept in place, hiding his nervousness. “How about you?”

“Yes, of course.” Jon almost looked apologetic if Tim didn’t know any better.

It seemed crazy all of a sudden, that Jon was an actual dragon choosing to spend his days as a librarian looking asshole, pretending to be human. It was nuts that he never acknowledged it outright, only in vague offhand comments that could – for all he knew – be entirely made up. He had Tim almost begging for the release of the hold he held over this mental war between them. It could still all be bullshit, but no, because why would he lie to him about it? Or Sasha. Or Martin.

Where was the monster he knew Jon was? How long did Tim have to wait for him to finally snap?

Tim looked down at the archivist, a small well-kept man with a perpetual frown on his forehead. By all means he looked as boring as any math teacher he’s ever had. Jon should never have said what he was, Tim thought. He wouldn’t ever have guessed that he was a monster.

“You’re looking for information on the circus of the Stranger,” Jon said.

Tim went rigid, a shudder shooting up his spine. Jon already knew from the start which documents he was interested in. This shouldn’t be surprising. And yet, he couldn’t stop the trepidation from settling on his skin.

“Yes,” Tim said, because there was no use in trying to deny it. “Why do you wanna know?”

There was a weird movement to Jon’s eyes, a sudden interest at having apparently struck a nerve. Not a sparkle, but a glint, sharp in his otherwise dull brown eyes which Tim caught and made his heart race. “You’ve been going into closed stacks.”

Tim’s hand shot up to rub at his neck, in a sudden fit of nervousness. If he had found out he had gone into stacks that shouldn’t be accessed, then what else did he know? Did he suspect why Tim wanted information on the circus? That his interest in magic went beyond the novelty of being able to use it?

“You gave me clearance, right?”

“No, I did not.”

Well, it was worth a try.

“Those stacks are inaccessible to the public and archival assistants for a reason. Most of them are very fragile, and if they’re damaged even further we could lose that portion of the archive, of history. I’m not saying you’re not careful, I know you are. But if you really want to know something-“

Jon stopped as if he caught himself saying something weird.

“I could ask you, right?” Tim finished for him, his arms once again secure to his body because if they weren’t he might just throw the bag of dirt at his boss’ head. His hands itched like the cold that settled on them when he used magic. It would be easy like this, he pondered belatedly, to just stuff his boss’ eyes full of dirt. “You know that’s not gonna happen.”

“I might be able to help.”

Tim didn’t want to be fed information. He had to find it for himself, not rely on shapeshifting monsters whose intentions were murky at best. “No thank you.”

“Alright,” Jon said, and that was that. He sighed. “Well, regardless, I would appreciate it if you didn’t go digging into any more documents you have no right to. Because I will know.”

Tim nodded, feeling the weight of that final threat. He was happy for this conversation to break up.

How much had truly changed between him and Jon? Did they ever have a proper conversation in the short week before all of this? Not just a joke after emotionlessly being handed an assignment. Had Jon not worked from morning to afternoon, head buried in his books without giving his assistants much care?

Jon was a small man. Stuffy looking, and proper. There had to be more to him. He was too normal, in his loafers and slightly-too-big sweater and the weirdly badass leather coat that seemed to totally break up the illusion-

His head perked up. A weird thought came to him as he looked at the fine details of the patterns in that leather. He hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but now that he was so close to it he saw a dull shine gloss over thick scales as Jon turned around. It was an odd jolt of thinking that jumped from the back of Jon’s coat to the bag of magic in Tim’s own pocket, to the dirt Jon had pulled out of his on fire safety day. Before he knew what struck him, Tim had one hand outstretched, perfectly within reach of Jon’s collar.

He always wore the thing.

It slipped off like a ripple in water. Jon let out a startled cry as his arms bent backwards with the pull which started out human, but turned into a monstrous screech halfway through. Horns sprouted from the being’s cranium pointing downwards as its head curved upwards and its neck grew longer now that the coat no longer covered it. Tim watched with detached shock as the man before him lost his skin and gained scales the colour of his coat, unbelieving that this was what his hand intended to do.

“Jesus Christ!” he heard someone cry out – Martin.

The sweater it wore strained under ever growing wings until they finally broke through, ripping the fabric into shreds while the beast snarled. The dragon turned around to face Tim, its eyes slitted and furious and pointed directly at Tim who nearly bowed down before the beast as it bore down on him with a force so intense he didn’t want to stand up.

Its wings spread properly then without constraint. And what Tim saw, was eyes.

A hundred of them, peering down at his prone form as the wings they sat in blocked his path. Their dark browns deeper than anything he’s ever seen. Their pupils stronger than a black hole. White slits in dark membrane like jagged scars in the night sky. He couldn’t look away, and the more he looked he could swear he saw red dots flicker within those irises, like lasers pointed at him, pinpricks finding their way to the surface of a vast pool.

He could barely breathe out a “fuck” as he scrambled to his feet. But he felt limbless, weak as his neck craned to look up at the beast in front of him. His feet found no leeway as he watched, like Danny’s gliding across the floor without his own volition. Pinpricks of red light, like spotlights on dancers while creatures that surround his brother laughed like jesters and the chatter of birds and the roaring of tigers in front of an audience that could only watch, gleeful and wild as their bodies contorted themselves far too daintily for beings their size. Red like the imprints of blood on the podium, tendrils from the cracks in his feet that rose upwards like peeling birchwood, and scaled monsters who wrapped those strips around their jagged scales. Faces stripped of their owners and exchanged over long wooden faces with indentions no nostrils no eyes but sharp mouths and black sockets, bound tightly, warped into his-

“Danny.”

And then the wings were gone, pulled shut and tucked away tightly against the beast’s hide, taking the jagged eyes with them. The red lights within them faded out, a statement completed.

There came a low sound from the monster as it spoke, almost human if you perked your ears, but with a constant threat of a murmur in its throat and coming from a mouth with much sharper teeth than yours so you couldn’t possibly overlook the fact that it wasn’t human. Tim couldn’t hear it either way, only the chatter of those others clattering in his mind and the wrong music they made as he crawled backwards along the floor, his mouth agape behind a smothering hand – thankfully his own, suffocating the heavy sobs in his throat. He wouldn’t let it have that satisfaction.

As soon as he found his footing, he bolted, running as quick as he could from the Institute’s archive and the monster that lurked within it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter, though not nearly as long as the Georgie one (which i wrote in 6 days?? wtf). Sorry for the long delay in updates. School's nearly over so I will have a bit more time to hyperfocus writing this fic, which I'm thinking about every single day.  
> Edit note: removed Jon's comment about nightmare walking. He didn't take Tim's full statement, and that would've bothered me in the long run. I also made Martin a bit kinder at the end. Sorry for the messy update. This was a tough one.  
> Edit note 2: I edited out a major incontinuity in the chapter 6 after Martin wrote poetry, where jon didnt know what the notebook was for and what was written in it. Really weird mistake on my part. It should read smoother now.

“What the hell was that?!”

“I-I’m–“

“You know, I kept an ear out for you because of how tense things have been between the both of you, and Tim looked dodgy as hell this morning so I had my suspicion he might be up to something, so when I heard screaming I thought ‘oh, god. There it is. Tim’s finally snapped,” but no. I turn around and what do I see?”

“Martin, I–“

“Tim on the floor looking like he’s just seen the reckoning and you eye-blasting the ever-loving crap out of him. What were you thinking!”

“Martin, I’m so sorry–“

“Could you be a little bit more transparent about being a soul-sucking monster next time, Jon? I actually believed you when you told us you weren’t dangerous.”

“I-I never said–“

“’Wouldn’t hurt a fly’ has about the same meaning, Jon!”

“Harmless. I said harmless.”

“Did you actually believe that yourself when you said it? Because something clearly happened to Tim. Oh, what. Must’ve been the fairies that’ve been living in your wings, is it? He couldn’t even _move_. He was _terrified_. Tim, the guy who wants to sock you in the face any hour of the day, couldn’t do _anything_ to you.”

At least Jon had the decency to look ashamed. Like a bad dog getting scolded for ripping up the couch – guilty, but so satisfied with what he’d done. His yellow eyes darted, his blown wide pupils unable to look Martin straight in the eye, and licking his lips in a half-hearted open-mouthed snarl. His trousers were ruined, his long tail sticking out the back of it drooping on the floor as he sat with his claws pressed in front of him, and his shirt and sweater hung over him in ribbons. Martin would’ve chuckled at the sight if he wasn’t so irremediably mad.

He had let out a blood curling roar that had Martin shaking in the knees but kept Tim immobile as he towered over him, a great presence borne down onto him as his wings encompassed the both of them. Close as he was, Martin hadn’t been able to stop it either. For the briefest of moments Jon became that monster he had always been. The one that Martin hadn’t believed was actually there, only in Jon’s self-depreciating mind. Martin had nearly forgotten what he looked like.

And then Jon closed his wings, becoming his small self again, and Tim was gone. No nasty remark thrown at Jon to bring him to Tim’s level. No swing at his head. Just scrambled upright and ran.

It was a small comfort that Jon allowed Martin to chew him out in the middle of the hallway at all, instead of ripping his face off for daring to stand up to him. Jon didn’t look so terrifying now, repressed excitement, cowering under Martin’s scrutiny, so he imagined that the tremor in his hands stemmed from his anger, not fear.

Martin hoped, begged, that Jon had the good sense to explain himself and tell him what the hell just happened. He needed Jon to have a reason. A solid reason. Because he couldn’t understand why he would do something so incredibly irresponsible as this.

“I’m so sorry, Martin.”

“Tell that to Tim!”

“Yes. I know.” Jon gave a firm nod, still holding his mouth open as if out of breath. “I will.”

“Right.” Martin nodded in return, feeling a bit at loss for words. “Good.”

“I’m sorry I scared you.” His tongue darted from between his lips.

Martin let out a shuddering sigh, clenching his fists, looking down at the meek dragon before him. “I’m not just scared, Jon. I’m confused. I can’t believe you did that. We trusted you – me and Sasha. You seemed okay.”

He wished Sasha would come back soon. She might be able to take the reins for a bit while he yelled into his hands and wrote his resignation letter.

Martin rubbed the bridge of his nose, knocking his glasses askew. There was an impossible moment as he realised that he probably had to be the one to call after Tim and see if he was okay. He really wasn’t looking forward to that conversation, but Tim just as much as anyone should have someone he could talk to. God knew Martin ignored him every time Tim voiced his worries. It wasn’t just Jon. Martin owed Tim an apology too. He was a hypocrite, a terrible hypocrite who would rather pretend nothing was wrong and ignore what he felt that first time he saw Jon than acknowledge Tim’s trauma, only because his boss looked trustworthy. And wasn’t that the thing about forgetting? It didn’t seem all that bad after a while.

Seeing Jon as he really was for the second time did not make any less of an impact than the first time around. The tremor in his chest felt just as prominent. Even more so now that he stood so near, though less because he wasn’t stalking over to him from the darkness. Jon hunched with discomfort and anxiety, which made his four horns jut up like a crown and his yellow eyes glow like slitted jewels under them. Even cowering under Martin, almost grovelling with his constant apologies he was still wicked looking.

A gruelling moment of silence passed.

“It was an accident,” Jon said softly. “He startled me.”

“Oh, he startled you, did he?” Martin said doubtfully, though he knew he shouldn’t have said it like that. Jon got paranoid, and if he was in a bad mood he interpreted everything as an attack. Add some creepy eye powers into the equation and you got a human meal out of it.

“Yes!” Jon all but pleaded and then immediately averted his gaze in shame. He shifted uncomfortably, his black talons clicking on the wooden floor despite how short they seemed for a dragon. “He pulled off my coat. I suppose it won’t matter any longer if I tell you, but the leather contains magic which makes it so that I appear human whenever I wear it or I at least cover myself with it.” Then he muttered, “I wonder if Tim even knew what he was doing.”

Martin’s eyebrows rose.

It had been an accident. An involuntarily transformation by the person who hated, and was terrified of him. A simple reflex by a creature neither Tim nor Martin fully understood, because he kept himself so hidden from them any change was interpreted as wrong. This was why Jon avoided Tim and why Tim avoided Jon. They both knew what they were up against, though neither of them understood what exactly would happen if they clashed.

And Martin had to clean up the mess they left behind.

Jon found his coat lying in a heap on the ground and picked it up. His sharp rows of teeth delicately bit into the leather as he pulled it up before sitting on his haunches and taking it into his claws. He looked at it for a moment, then down at his tattered clothes and thought the better of it, folding it neat and tidy in a weirdly human way over his arm.

Martin nearly sighed with relief, his anger wearing out now that he at least knew why it had happened, though disappointment kept his chest heavy and tense.

“Well, I’m sorry that happened, Jon.” This didn’t mean he excused his actions, only that he sympathised.

Jon shook his head, almost like a shrug. A weird gesture to see an overgrown reptile make as his head swivelled to the side. Martin wondered how much subtleties he wasn’t picking up on. The quiver of his wings, the darting of his eyes, the constant flicking of his tongue, maybe even the way he sat or held himself, or spoke. He could relate it to different kinds of animals, sure, but he felt like that did him disservice. Jon was intelligent and complex. If he had to go by the gestures a human like him could interpret, it made Jon look so pitiable despite the snarls and shifty movements. Martin wanted to reach out and comfort that scaly dragon head, hold it in his arms if he wasn’t still a fair bit pissed off at him. And also, he shouldn’t hug his boss.

“I hate to say it,” he continued, “but this is exactly the sort of situation I was worried about would happen if you didn’t show your real face more often. Maybe this is an incentive for you to be a bit more, well, _you_ from time to time.” Martin laughed bitterly, “You know, I can’t help it. I’ve tried to tell myself no, but I can’t stop shaking. I’m not used to you at all.”

He held out his hand to show Jon. It didn’t shake terribly, but it had a tremor to it that made it uncomfortable to have it open instead of balled into a fist. Jon’s long neck reached out to inspect his hand, his tongue flicking like a snake’s over his skin. Martin jolted, but didn’t pull away. Jon looked up at Martin with an expression he couldn’t possibly identify.

“I’m sorry, Martin.”

It was a weird thought to have that the dragon in front of Martin was the real Jon. That his human face wasn’t real, or the way he walked, his hands, his expressions, the touch of grey in his hair. His eyes, white and brown instead of yellow and… some sort of murky darkness that compelled his every attention. He tried to envision Jon the human sitting on the floor like he did, and the thought made him sick with silliness.

“But if I have this straight, in order for you to not be scared of me I have to scare you by looking like this every day.” It wasn’t even a question. He said it with such disdain Martin wondered if it shouldn’t be Jon who had to comforted for his issues instead of Tim.

“Not scare us. Just be yourself. It’s like–“ Martin held his head up in thought. “It’s like watching cute insect videos online. See them fall off of things and eat some leaves. Y’know, make a real mess of themselves. If you keep seeing them in a way that is natural for them it makes them more approachable and not as scary and monstrous with their proboscises and gross glossy shields and little legs. I have watched so many spider videos that I can’t imagine ever freaking out over the hairs on their legs or the way they look at you with their little eyes like you’re amazing simply for being a giant. It all becomes so cute once you’ve watched enough of them. It normalizes their… grotesqueness.”

“Cute,” Jon grumbled dismissively. “Sasha thinks I’m cute too.”

Before he could voice his support with that statement, Martin shut himself up.

“Also insects have exoskeletons, not shields. They’re made up of chitin and–“ Jon snarled suddenly, his hand in front of his muzzle as if to hide his sharp teeth. The sight made Martin wince. “Unimportant. I’m sorry. But I… I can’t accept what you’re saying. Tim wasn’t just scared of me because of what I look like or how- how grotesque I am.”

Martin averted his eyes, a furrow on his brow. “Right.” How could he forget? “It was your powers.”

Jon nodded apologetically. “Did you see them?” he asked almost bashfully.

Martin didn’t think he had, so he shook his head no. He assumed it was his eyes, because he was a Beholding, but he didn’t think Tim had been looking at his head at all, only those powerful–

“Yes, ah. My wings.”

Martin looked them over, long and curved, but with a slight bend to them that allowed them to trail behind him as he sat.

“Can I see them?” He opened his hand in an invitation.

Jon backed away, startled, his wings rising up behind him but not opening. “Ah- it’s best if you didn’t. You don’t understand, Martin. No, I don’t think I ever explained well enough – my powers, I use them to feed.”

Martin snatched his hand back.

“And that’s what happened to Tim,” he said. A dawning realisation passed over his face.

“Whaaaaat’s happened to Tim?” Sasha asked, an eyebrow quirked.

“Sasha!” Jon snapped to attention when she came to stand next to them. Neither of them heard her coming from the hallway, long as it was. After making a little jump of excitement Jon sat down as if he had to look proper for her. Martin’s heart rate spiked at her sudden appearance.

“The one and only,” she said. “Say, what’s with the outfit? Did Martin ravish you?”

Martin flushed at the comment, which felt entirely inappropriate with his anger still weighing down his heart. Jon’s shoulders sagged under his shredded clothes as his guilt promptly returned to him.

“Oh no,” she said with a frown as she caught their reaction. “It’s Tim, isn’t it? It’s serious.”

Jon was silent. Martin let out a unavoidable, “yeah”.

Sasha sighed. “Let’s sit down.”

They gathered around the great mahogany research table. Sasha placed her shoulder bag onto it. Jon, after ripping off whatever was left of his clothing, leapt up on the table with near cat-like grace, dragging and dropping his coat over the back of a chair. Sasha and Martin took their places opposite each other, forming a triangle with Jon as it’s gargoyle head.

For a moment Jon was so quiet Martin was worried that he had to step in and tell Sasha what had happened to Tim. To his relief, Jon opened his mouth and started to speak.

“I have known for a while that Tim carried a statement with him. I can’t see it clearly when I’m a human, but even when my powers are subdued there’s a smell to… to statement givers. My eyes linger on them longer than necessary, and no matter how much I fight it I can’t help but wanting to have their stories, even if that means I have to breach their trust or safety. I try, usually. I don’t make a habit of losing control.

“Martin knows this already, but you Sasha never asked about it so I couldn’t find a reason within me to tell you. I suppose it won’t help you any longer if I keep it hidden from you. Like any other dragon, I feed on fear. Human fear, especially. Tim fed me.”

It was still jarring to hear Jon admit it, and even weirder to consider that Tim had been right about his worry of being eaten.

Sasha didn’t seem particularly surprised at all, her only reaction a loaded sigh. Then again, she picked up on clues much quicker than Martin did, thought it felt still wrong to think that she suspected this entire time. 

What really send an arrow through his chest was when she nodded and said “his brother” with the knowledge and sensitivity of a person who had been in on the story from the start.

Something terrible had happened to Tim, presented to Jon as a sort of horror story – the ones they researched nearly every single day. Of course Tim wasn’t obliged to entrust Martin with private matters. Martin had no business knowing why he was ready to flip the fucking table the instant Jon made a wrong move, he already assumed he had his reasons, warranted or not. Yet it stung, shut off from inclusion, and not being trusted with it like Sasha had.

Jon nodded. “I offered to assist him with this ‘hunt’ he’s been on, looking for the dragons that killed his brother, though lord knows what he’s going to do once he finds them. I thought maybe if I could help him, we would be even. That it would lessen the tension in the workroom. Of course, he refused me.”

He nosed the wrinkles in his long leather coat.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve had distrustful assistants. It can be hard to focus on work when you’ve got a strange dragon wandering around the archives, especially if you come into the archives already hating them. I had this made to protect you from seeing me like this, or at least give you the pretence of safety. Tim made the connection with my coat and the properties of magic artefacts. It was just a thought he had, a leap in reasoning, but he was right. One moment I had my back turned to him, the next he had his fist tightened in my collar, pulling it off. Martin saw it happening.”

Martin nodded at Sasha. “Should’ve heard him roaring. I really thought one finally killed the other.”

The way Jon spoke was forlorn, with a low rumble in the back of his throat, but not unlike the way he sometimes spoke into his recorder while taking statements. If he could take this as a clue, Martin mused that during those recordings Jon fed on the stories. He shared this theory with Sasha later on, who found it rather obvious, then had it almost immediately confirmed afterwards by Jon when he walked past.

Sasha’s expression was dark and pensive. “And what happened next?”

Jon lowered his chest, bringing himself under their eye level from his previously looming stance, not quite lying down, not quite sitting up.

“I don’t think I can explain it very well.”

“Well, he startled you, right?” Martin intercepted. Sasha shouldn’t think that Jon harmed Tim on purpose.

“Hah, yes, but I startled him right back.” A muscle in his abdomen flexed, making one of his wings bristle. “I can show you in a controlled state. I will not take your statement, but I can’t promise I won’t know a few things about you. If that is alright with you?”

Martin didn’t like lying. It made him feel bad, dishonest, someone you couldn’t trust. But he had to in order to get what he wanted sometimes. Therefore, Martin kept a few secrets, and with nobody to share them with he had been piling them up over the years. What Jon had shown today was not something he looked very proud of, and despite what he’d done, Martin still trusted him. With Jon, an eye for an eye didn’t seem so bad.

He nodded, albeit somewhat reluctantly. He looked over at Sasha, and she gave her timid ‘alright’ as well.

Martin felt it coming up.

Like slow-motion, he unfurled his wing. The bones of it stretched just slightly like a hand spreading its slender fingers, exposing the dark membrane stretching out between it. Had Martin looked over at Jon’s face, he’d found his eyes flitting nervously, but his gaze was too fixated on the bumps in his otherwise smooth wing.

“Oh,” Martin said as one of the bumps started to part. A sliver of white at first, then splitting open in a jagged oval and within it an iris the size of the moon. A human eye, with white sclera instead of yellow. Brown and curious. The same crazed stare Jon’s often had.

It quivered as if it tried its best not to look at Martin or Sasha directly.

Then more opened up. A sea of sharp ovals and rounded eyeballs. All trembling eyes, nervous with manic energy. Nasty looking, curious, big and brown and deep black in the middle, pulling the humans in. Sasha’s hand shot out towards Martin in surprise, and he yelped at the contact. One of the eyes snapped towards him for the briefest of moments before pulling itself pointedly away again, a surge of _something_ prickling at the back of his neck for that single instant. It resumed its flickering around the room, avoiding the two humans sitting in it’s centre, but that shiver already shot through his spine and curled his toes like cold water.

“Oh, that looks like a nightmare,” Martin said at the twitching mass of eyes.

Jon stood as if in a trance, his body stiff with attention focused on anywhere but his two assistants, his tongue slithering between his front teeth like a snake.

“Yes,” he said, tinged with sadness and inevitability, “they will return to him.”

At least Martin knew he was alright now, if he went back to sprouting his mystical one-liners.

Jon folded his wings abruptly, pulling Martin and Sasha away from the eye’s gaze. It was like Martin could breathe again. The corners of his eyes hurt from constant strain.

Tim had caught the worst of that. Double the wings, hundreds of those pupils aimed at him, known in every possible way, driven down onto the floor by those oppressing unyielding eyes.

Sasha had worry etched on her face, and she rubbed a hand over mouth in thought while the other still rubbed at Martin’s. “And that’s what Tim saw when you pulled his statement out of him.”

Jon lay down fully onto the table now, small again. “Yes. He startled me and I just– I couldn’t stop myself. You don’t understand. Once I open my eyes it all gets too much and it feels _so good_ to–”

“No, Jon. Stop,” Sasha said sharply, but quiet as if to hold herself in. She reached out to his paw and ran her fingers softly over his thick scales. “I’m sorry, just-“ she sighed. “Tim shouldn’t have done that.”

Jon nodded reluctantly.

“I suppose." He didn't look convinced. "Regardless, I will talk to him and explain as soon as possible. I want to make this right.”

Call him a pessimist, but at that moment Martin sincerely doubted that Tim was going to listen to Jon. The eyes hadn’t even been looking at Martin directly and he already felt like lying down and not getting back up. He’d felt that power – even the slightest bit of paranoia coiled around his cortex.

Sasha shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Believe me, he’s not gonna wanna pick up the phone if you’re on the other line.”

Jon drooped.

“We should call him,” she continued, looking over at Martin. “Just say we heard what happened. Don’t try to explain it away. Let him talk through it. Right now he just needs to be heard, and more importantly, believed.”

Martin sighed a begrudged, “yeah”.

“I see,” Jon said. “Alright. Thank you, Sasha.”

She did not look happy. She did not give him her usually chipper ‘no problem, boss’. She pursed her lips and frowned. “I’ll be honest with you guys,” she said. “We should’ve seen this a long time coming.”

* * *

The remainder of Jon’s clothes were thrown into a trashcan, and his coat stayed in its place hung over the chair. Jon told them there was no sense in getting a change of clothes now, so he spent the rest of his day as a dragon.

If human Jon was elusive, dragon Jon was even more so. When there was nothing more to discuss he slunk back into the archives, seemingly doing random check-ups from year 2017 to 3000 BC. Martin and Sasha could get on with their work, sure, but the random scratching noises and filing cabinets opening and closing and heavy books being dragged from shelf to shelf had Martin’s neck hairs standing straight.

Jon avoided him whenever he came close, no matter if he wanted to offer him some tea or simply walked past him. Martin could imagine he still felt guilty over what he’d done to Tim, but becoming a dark shadow in the backrooms of the archive wasn’t going to ease the persistent weight in Martin’s chest that had him checking over his shoulders every so often. Jon’s sharpness lingered in his mind. The underlying rumble in his voice, the night sky of curious nightmarish eyes he kept hidden in his wings.

But it really was just Jon, and if he decided to ignore all the horrible things he could do to break his mind or whatever, he had to admit it was kind of cool having a dragon guarding the archive. Seeing him waddle on his two hind legs with his hands full of research was a sight Martin wasn’t sure he deserved to behold.

He found him lying on a top shelf, much like he had that first day when the archives had been dim and the glow of Jon’s eyes shone from out of the darkness, only now the lights were on and he sat fully illuminated. His long brown and purple body lay stretched out. The tip of his ridged tail hung lazily over the edge. His clawed hands clutched a heavy book he was resting his boxy torso onto, his head flat in front of it with his neck resting limp but in a painful looking angle.

He was asleep. His chest rose heavily with a low rumble as he snored lightly, and his nostrils flared ever so often. Martin wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing to find Jon sleeping in the archive. He always looked awfully tired, but tired enough that it made him pass out? 

“Uhm, Jon?” Martin said as quietly as he could, in case he got startled again and they kickstarted a whole new situation.

Jon awoke with a snort. “Uhu! Ahahahaha… Oh. Martin,” Jon mumbled clumsily, his head turning to look down on him.

“Was I interrupting?” Martin asked, his voice still soft. Mum got cranky at loud noises sometimes.

“No.” There was something discordant in seeing Jon laze around at work when he knew Jon was a workaholic any other day of the week. His talons rested against the tome, as if to keep it close. “Unless you don’t need anything.”

“Oh! Uhm, no. I was wondering if you needed anything? Tea?”

Martin wondered if Jon even had to eat or drank normal stuff at all. Human Jon had learned to accept his tea offerings, but the dragon part of him gladly ate bugs and tiny larvae dragons.

To his surprise, Jon nodded. “That would be nice, thank you.”

“Okay, I’ll bring you some.”

When he came back, he found Jon’s office door ajar.

He stood at his desk, two clawed hands pressed on the top as he stood on his hind legs, making him almost as tall as Martin was. Eye to eye. Though technically they were probably called paws or talons, they looked strangely human. Just a bit chubbier and made for walking on all fours, but the nails weren’t wicked long and razor sharp like he initially thought. Much more like human nails, but thicker, black and pointier.

It was strange how much he fit in the room. The walls a neutral grey with soft patterns like triangles, almost eyes if Martin looked closely, which was hugely ironic and likely intended considering what Jon was. The browns of the shelves matched the colour of Jon’s scales, and they had a neatness to them he expected from the academic looking human he usually was, but the research on his desk was strewn about like he’d been rolling in it. His office looked as busy as it always had, and Jon was much the same.

"Hi, Jon." He placed the cup on his desk, made just how he liked it, though he wasn’t sure how it was gonna taste to a dragon. Jon gave him a small nod. "Sorry for earlier. I really flew off the handle, hah."

Jon said nothing, his gaze fixed on the pictures and writings in front of him.

"How are you feeling?" Martin asked him.

“Embarrassed,” Jon replied. “Might send out an e-mail to HR later.”

“O-oh, do they know you’re-?”

“I’m joking, Martin.” Though he couldn’t physically see his lips curl upwards, his voice had a hint of humour. The tips of his teeth were exposed, which Martin guessed was the closest indicator of a dragon smile he could interpret.

“Ah, right. Right.”

Jon shifted his body then with a nervous glance sent into Martin’s direction. He had dragged his coat with him into the office and placed it neatly over his now-useless desk chair. He ran a talon over the scales, tracing the groves bashfully. “I know what you must think of me, Martin. I’m a beast. I can’t control myself. I shouldn’t have assistants–“

“Jon, no.” Martin reached out. Jon didn’t stop him as he put his hands on his long face, holding his sturdy reptile head in his palms as he cupped his scaly cheeks. He felt cold to the touch, hard where scutes met with horn, but supple in the scales on his jaws. He was oddly light and smooth over his ridges, and his big piercing eyes made his heart jolt. The look Jon gave him made him want to lean in closer, have him cradled against his chest, but it was more important that Jon looked him in the eye and saw how serious Martin was.

“You said it was an accident, so I believe you. I won’t pretend that you don’t have a lot of issues, and that you can’t be scary to some people, but everyone makes mistakes. Keeping us in the dark about what you are is just gonna give us more stupid Tim situations. You don’t have to avoid me. Okay, yes, I’m still a little bit nervous because your teeth are pretty sharp and I’ve never seen a reptile as big as you that’s not a crocodile, but I don’t mind that, Jon. You are what you are.”

His eyes were big and brown and yellow and scary, but those deep black pupils that pulled him in seemed very soft in that moment. Jon was a good listener, if he allowed himself, and Martin hoped he took his words to heart.

“Ehm,” Jon said dumbly, the voice in his throat holding a surprising weight as it rumbled through Martin’s hands. “Alright, Martin. I promise. I won’t avoid you.”

“Good.” He released his boss’ face, feeling a bit flustered.

He respected Jon more as a person than as a monster. It was why he immediately started scolding him, furious in an instant and demanding an explanation. A person should be called out for their nonsense. If he respected him more as a monster, he would’ve run out of the archives like Tim, maybe thrown the fire extinguisher at him for good measure.

Martin stood there rubbing his arm with sudden jitteriness, his heart jumping hoops and wondering where he’d gotten the guts to grab Jonathan Sims’ face like that.

Jon took hold of the tea, looking a bit sheepish. After observing the cup from all sides and trying to drink from the brim with his scaly lips to no avail, Jon decided to simply lap at it with his long snake tongue, hunched over his desk.

His boss was a strange one. Anti-social and awkward. A dragon and a man at the same time. A guy who made mistakes, and who wasn’t necessarily liked by others by proxy of looking human. Martin could identify with that. Wasn’t that what it meant to be a real person anyway? You lived your life as well as you could, stayed true to yourself and tried to make the best of it. Shared some tea and laid your soul bare and hoped people understood what you were without stomping on you too much.

No, Martin decided, he shouldn’t be scared of Jon at all.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And how does Jon feel?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **NOTE: I edited some things in the last chapter to make it not end on such a hard note, with a little more fluff between Martin and Jon. I also removed the line about Tim being visited by Jon in his nightmares, since I felt like that was a step too far if I want to wrap this up concisely, plus he didn't ask him for his statement, he just tapped into his mind a tad too strongly, so I felt like that wasn't really in tune with canon.**  
>  Last chapter was the end of the heavy angst-fest. I hope this one's more to you guys liking, since I've written this with that very first tag in mind.. fluff and humour.
> 
> Enjoy!

The old and powerful Jonah Magnus was sat on his office chair, balancing his books as was his duty as Elias Bouchard. He liked to watch the numbers add up, have those fat checks from the Institute’s patrons neatly aligned and compensating the expenses of his hoard.

The Lukases especially were so delightfully rich, and they had continued to serve the Institute with their old money well into the 21st century. It kept Jonah, Elias, comfortably secure in his Machiavellian tower of knowledge. Him and Jonathan both, although the latter never vocalized his appreciation despite living lavishly in his well of an archive, which was – should he remind him – generously provided by Elias.

Elias didn’t ask much in return. As long as Jon kept his archive open to him and continued his research he could do whatever he pleased, but that wouldn’t ever be a problem for his archivist.

It would suit him to be a bit more grateful. If Jonathan ever cared to step outside the Institute he would realize how hard it was to gather the fear of humans by following his own morals. For an all seeing, and therefore exceptionally powerful dragon of the fears, Jon was dreadfully pacific, preferring to starve himself over doing anything he deemed morally wrong. Of course, that usually lasted for as long as he could keep his eyes closed.

Jon had problems with his cruel tendencies in the past. Especially during those times when he hadn’t learned how to disguise himself as a human yet, when his wings stretched carelessly and his draconic presence, though small, made his assistants anxious and wary. Sometimes they stayed until the end, sometimes they quit from stress if Jon permitted it. More often than not they died in the line of duty, which Elias found recommendable.

There were those who tried to have Jon killed for what he was. Elias might say that hiring them had been a mistake on his part, that he loathed people who couldn’t understand that which was different and frightening. In truth, observing his players was what the did and loved. He knew their fear; humans were predictable. And Jon was more than capable of handling himself. Sometimes that ended in him getting fed – a good ending, Elias thought, to what otherwise would simply be a tragedy.

Elias did try his best in hiring adequate assistants for Jon, though.

When he sat opposite Timothy Stoker in his job interview it became clear that he had a secret, one that Elias thought would appease Jon greatly if he found out. Martin Blackwood was a caregiver, loyal and a liar, someone who Jon could greatly benefit from if need arose. Sasha James had her own competency; already capable of using magic, although in a very juvenile state, but whose training in archiving could feed a hungry beast like Jonathan for as long as he liked.

Keeping the new trio of archival assistants in the dark about Jon’s status as a Beholding was a little joke Elias couldn’t help but smirk at from time to time. It couldn’t hurt. Elias truthfully thought it might help Jon relax to not have his true species brought up, the constant worry only a distraction from their work. Knowing rarely made their job any more pleasant regardless, considering most of Jon’s assistants did not come out of it alive other than the rare exception, with no retirements if memory served. And yes, it brought a smile to Elias’ lips as he watched the resulting chaos unfold after the truth came out. Was that so wrong?

Elias found joy in keeping secrets. He was good at it. He observed and worked out the variables and let the assistants play amongst themselves until they finally figured it all out. Have truths come to them in ways that sunk their hearts.

He liked to see the characters play out their roles, a show performed on a dimly lit podium of which Elias was not only the sole spectator, but also the spotlight operator – the truth only visible to him as the others fumbled in the dark.

But what he liked, didn’t necessarily mean he had.

He had his Institute. His tower. His eye paraphernalia.

He had his hierarchies; his researchers, his archivist, his archival assistants.

He had his knowledge carefully stowed away in his library and… Jon’s archive. And he held uncountable truths in his books and scrolls and co-workers and research papers.

But despite all that, despite the giant hoard over which he had cast his wings for two hundred years, it did not belong to his body. Just to what he owned.

Over the years, he felt himself enjoy the confusion of the things he owned more than their knowledge, which was a problem. He was not one of confusion. He rightfully belonged to Beholding. The knowledge was his. It had always been his. If only his fallible body could accept that. Jonah’s eyes in Elias’ sockets should have been enough.

But that was an issue easily rectified every evening when it was Jon’s turn to feed him.

Jon managed his own shifts, sometimes far too deep into the night. Elias, not having the time for Jon’s whims, met him at the same hour every single evening for his report. It should be time soon for that rapt knock on the door and – yes, there it was.

“Come in,” Elias called, finishing up the last of his work, crossing his hands on the table.

The door creaked open and the familiar reptile slid through the gap, carrying his coat with him in his mouth.

The sight of him put a smile to Elias’ face.

Jon dragged himself in like he’d just gotten out of a downpour, which wasn’t strange in and of itself since he found his time spent with Elias comparatively dreadful to his work in the archive and tried to make his visits as brief as possible. But when he came in bearing the specific kind of look that told Elias he was going to need some prodding before he spilled whatever it was embarrassed him, well. It was no secret to Elias that the archives had its occasional adventure. It would be a shame if they left their boss out of the rare treat.

Jon jumped on his Chesterfield couch, his nails politely pointed away from the expensive leather, and sat poised.

“Exciting day for you, wasn’t it?” Elias said, putting his laptop to the side to focus his attention fully onto the dragon.

Jon said nothing.

Elias came from behind his desk. Jon seized him up, a funny gesture because of how much smaller and weaker he was than Elias. He licked over his snarling lips, trying to hide his expression of embarrassment as Elias came to stand before him with his suit neatly pressed and his hands placed patiently behind his back.

This was their deal. Elias gave Jon the space he needed to expand his archive and keep himself safe, in return for the fears and information he gathered as he did so. An agreement that had served them both very well over the years since Jon joined his Institute, and one Elias did not expect to end any time soon.

Jon spread his wings, his tips breaching the entire width of his couch and then some. His eyes were magnificent. A deep brown that could easily pull Elias’ secrets out of him as much as they could plant them. But there was no need for secrecy between the two. Jon knew who he was, and the intrigue had only pulled him further in despite his obvious abhor of it. That was what Elias liked about Beholdings so much. They followed you with every wrong turn.

He joined Elias to the dismay of Georgina Barker, who still thought Elias had lured Jon into his archive and kept him locked up. Admittedly, she was only partially wrong. If Jon wanted to end their contract, he would only have to say so. If Jon wanted to go outside, he would only have to do so. Elias simply encouraged him to stay inside for his own safety. Whatever else Jon told himself was his own undoing.

“Now,” Elias said while admiring Jon’s wings. “What seems to be the problem?”

Jon avoided eye contact. “I pulled out Tim’s statement,” he admitted.

Elias’ face brightened even more.

“Nearly,” Jon corrected himself. “It went unfinished.”

“Oh.” Elias kept his smile up, though only because he didn’t want his face to fall so visibly. “That’s a shame. I’m assuming it was an accident, then.”

“Of course,” Jon almost spit out. “I wouldn’t ask Tim about it. I didn’t compel him.”

But if the statement went unspoken it didn’t mean it hadn’t been recorded. The result was nearly the same, although Jon liked his stories to be completed and in spoken word. Whatever he pulled loose from Timothy he now stored in his wings, which was enough for Elias.

“Alright then. Let’s get on with our jobs.” Elias made a gesture of ‘go ahead’ and waited.

Jon’s brown eyes shone, the red pinpricks surfacing on his pupils as they fed Elias today’s report.

He started with the mellow garbage; the Jane Prentiss articles. Incredibly dull. He could read the newspapers for that, and he already had. The addition of wyrms crawling between the floorboards was interesting, though.

Then Jon showed Tim pulling off his coat, Tim cowering on the floor as Jon gazed upon him, Martin’s concern, Sasha’s worry. It didn’t escape Elias’ notice that he skipped over Tim’s statement altogether.

“Now, don’t be shy archivist.”

Jon was bad at hiding and lying, respectively. The Jane Prentiss mishap where Jon had neglected to recite her statement, he had let go, but only because Jon severely overestimated her importance. Timothy, or rather his fears, was much more interesting for its internal conflicts in the workspace. (Once again this was worrying, because Elias should want to know everything.)

There was a gesture of his hands, the twisting of his fingers as his magic reached within Jon and pulled that statement right out of him. It made Jon nearly recoil, his wings flaring up and his hundreds of eyes focusing on Elias as he fed the images into his mind like the slow trickle of a brook.

The statement was unfinished like he said. Unfortunate. But the fear it contained made Elias’ cheeks rise to his eyes. He did not taste a single bit of it like Jon had, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it; the dancing Strangers as high as the ceilings, wearing the stolen skins of Timothy’s brother over their plastic and wooden bodies carved into something resembling the great beasts they supposedly were. There was a tasteful amount of blood and gore. The music was dream-like.

“Stop it,“ Jon said softly. His wings quivered, but his two reptile eyes were as lost in the memory as Elias was. Fighting against the swirl of intoxication Elias had put him in was only a formality at this point.

The statement was a classic, not as dreary as the ones he preferred from the Forsaken or Weavers, but good humour nonetheless. Such artistry for a ring of homicidal dragons.

When Jon was finished, Elias pulled himself away from his gaze and allowed his archivist to collect himself. Jon’s wings flapped awkwardly before they furled up against his side, his posture primed like a gargoyle on its pedestal. He had that dreamy look in his face, lost in thought and content with Tim’s fear as much as Elias was.

“How do you feel, Jon?”

“Terrible,” Jon said with that pitiful bow of his head which annoyed Elias with how submissive it was. It was unflattering for a creature like him. “Tim is scared out of his wits. Sasha’s furious. Martin’s far too worried and –“

“Well, you live and you learn, as I always say. Do not take this the wrong way, but do you feel like you’ve been lying to them, Jon? Because I do not think Martin is very well versed in dragon expressions.”

Realisation struck. Jon’s claws shot in front of his face, hiding the fact that he’d had a smile on his face from the moment he took Tim’s statement. Jon didn’t feel terrible. The opposite, really. He’d finally gotten a good meal. “Shut up.”

“You don’t have to hide from me. I’ve never judged you. But if you truly feel that remorseful over what you’ve done, it would be better if you wiped that grin off your face, hm?”

As embarrassed and guilty as he felt, Jon did as he said. His open mouth – lax in its jaw with sharp teeth poking from between his lips to show the slightest bit of happiness – closed with a snap.

“Now,” Elias continued, leaning in. “How do we really feel?”

There was very little use in denying it now.

“Sated,” Jon said, guilt plainly on his face. “I wish he could’ve told me the full story. But that’s of very little concern to you, _Elias_.”

“Nonsense, Jon. It’s been such a long time since you’ve had a good meal, hasn’t it? Although, really, this one was only an aperitif, wasn’t it? It’s not like you’ll go dream-hopping with Tim in the mix.”

Elias didn’t feel much in the way of guilt, especially when what he said was the truth and got Jon over his hang-ups. Jon gave him a stare that told him he’d struck a nerve, full of embarrassment and anger and defiance. It was a stare that might’ve made a weaker man waver, but Elias had always had a stronger willpower than Jon.

He gave Jon his best executive smile, and Jon backed down. “That is true,” he said. Air escaped from his nostrils as he flared them in thought.

This was getting them nowhere.

Elias let out a small sigh. “I could go for a smoke.”

Taking this as permission, Jon pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket along with his lighter.

Elias scowled. “Oh, put that away, will you. Can’t stand the smell.”

He walked over to his desk, tracing his fingers over the natural wooden groves before leaning against it. “Now, as for what we will do next. I find Timothy too fine of a researcher to let go despite being so unfortunately compromised. I seem to recall him getting into places that require a little bit more socializing, doesn’t he? Very different from mister Blackwood, or even miss James for all her charm. I think you will lose something valuable if you don’t get him back. I still find him an excellent fit for you and your team.”

“No,” Jon said. “I won’t send for him.”

“Oh, but I’m sure Daisy can retrieve him just fine.”

“Yes, I’m sure she would. But Elias, I can’t do that to him.”

Good lord was he difficult sometimes. He had the resources, didn’t he? Why not use them?

“Just a reminder, Jonathan, that I’m the one who hands out the pay checks. Do you want him fired, is that it?”

“I-I, no. He needs the Institute, and I don’t want to lose him. But if he doesn’t want to return then I– “

“Consider it, Jon. And keep those wyrms in check, will you? I don’t like pests in my Institute.”

Were Elias an ordinary boss, Jon would have rebutted, normally so quick to talk back. But Elias knew that he had a smell to him, one that made Jon a little bit more pliant when he wanted him to listen, just as he’d been pliant when he forced Tim’s statement out of him.

Even if he wasn’t going to consider it, Jon walked out of Elias’ office dazed and ruffled. Well fed and guilty, wanting to hide just a little bit deeper inside his archive. Feeling just a little bit more like the monster Jonah Magnus needed him to be.

* * *

“Please, if you can just let me talk to him.”

“Hold on for a moment. I’ll–“

“Stop messing around. I need to see him. **_NOW_**!”

“Okay, okay. Only if he wants to see you, though. I can’t exactly force him. Actually – and keep this between you and me – but I think he thinks you’re weird looking.”

“I’ve accepted that, but I would still like to see my little boy.”

“Don’t forget, Jon. He’s MY little boy. Be grateful you get to see him at all. Honestly sometimes it feels like you only call because of the Admiral.”

“That is a fair assumption to make.”

As she chased after her cat, Georgie gave Jon a good tour of her home. A decent flat, nothing too large, although she had two bedrooms – one to sleep in and the other transformed into a recording booth. He could only assume that the decoration was modern. Her telly was really flat for some reason. And she liked to keep pictures up on her wall of people Jon didn’t know, but could know if he tried, but which he wasn’t going to do because that was impolite and that was her study group from when she studied English language and literature some years ago damnit.

Jon’s corner of the screen was brown and pixelated. His huge face took up all of the camera as he sat in front of his phone propped up on his coffee table. He would have to sit further away from the screen once the Admiral came into view so he would continue to receive a good impression of the neat and well-kept Jonathan Sims he had so far presented to him despite their long distance relationship. He considered himself an uncle of some sorts. A friend of the family, with only the best intentions for his favourite cat-nephew.

“Well, hello there,” Georgie nearly sang into the microphone, her camera locked onto the raised tail of her cat who had previously been busy furiously running away from her. She stroked him over his flank, his luscious hair flattening before fluffing up again under her hand. He meowed, bouncing against her shins, and bit her when she got too close to his belly. Jon could relate. They’d all been there.

“Great seeing you, Admiral,” Jon said, scuffling backwards, his brown pixel rectangle sharpening into his long dragon face. “He thought you were playing chase,” he told Georgie.

“Of course he did,” Georgie said, scratching the Admiral behind the ear. “All work and no play makes Georgie a dull mummy.”

“Good to hear business is doing well.” Jon searched for the Admiral as Georgie fumbled with her phone, taking him up her arm and puffing out on the couch. After a few seconds, her face came into view again along with the Admiral and his little pink nose and whiskers. He purred heavily into the microphone, and Jon suppressed the urge to lick his phone in greeting.

“Sort of. I’m in the middle of a new project, which keeps me busy. But I’ve got a new sponsor that’ll keep us fed for a while, so I guess that’s business.” She buried her face in the Admiral’s mane. “But even if I die of starvation you’ll just eat my decomposing body, won’t you, baby? Won’t you? Mwah, mwah, mwah.”

He wished it was him burying his snout into the Admiral’s soft tummy, but seeing Georgie do it for him was close enough. She adjusted the camera so that the Admiral took over the screen, his smiling face content on Georgie’s lap as she stroked his beautiful fur.

“Also, he wants you to clean out the litter box less often.”

“Less often!?”

“He thinks it smells weird.”

“Okay, Jon, you know what? I know you can’t actually read my cat’s mind, so screw you. We don’t need a mediator for our domestic issues. We are happy together and you’re tearing this family apart.”

“You’re afraid I’ll steal your man.”

He would’ve posed it as a question if that wouldn’t rip the truth out of her mouth that yes, she was scared that if Jon was ever going to leave his archives again, it would be because of catnapping.

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m afraid of!”

He let out a low dragon chuckle.

He was content listening to her go on about her day, her week, month, her friends, the food she liked, the haunts she still wanted to investigate. If she noticed something was wrong with him, she didn’t mention it. He needed the calm right now, even though he was angry, elated, jittery, overwhelmed. He lay cross legged on the floor with his head curled against his chest, watching the Admiral and Georgie talk about their lives; the admiral with slow closing eyes telling Georgie he loved her, and Georgie going on about rants with Jon commenting every so often to keep her going.

“Jon,” she said after a long moment of silence in which he nearly took a nap. “You’ve been quiet for a while.”

He raised his head. “Hm? I’m just listening.”

“No, you’ve been brooding. I can tell because you’ve been doing that cat loaf tuck over and over for two minutes without actually getting comfortable. You never have to get comfortable. You plop down in a spot and don’t leave it for 4 hours.”

Jon let out a growl. “It’s work,” he mumbled. “Drama. You know, the usual.”

She went quiet. “I’m assuming ‘the usual drama’ means nobody got eaten.”

His nostrils flared.

“No,” Jon articulated slowly because he was tired of being coy about it. “I did not eat anyone. I _don’t_ eat anyone. I eat statements, and even that I did only partially this time. It’s not like I asked him anything. It’s not like he’s going to see me in his nightmares. He was being overdramatic like usual, and couldn’t keep his hands to himself and had to know what my deal was and –“

“Jon. Jon. Calm down.”

“– assumes whatever about me. I’m sorry if I overreacted and I’m sorry you don’t like me and I’m sorry I couldn’t explain it to you and I’m sorry you wouldn’t have _listened_ to me anyway.”

At this point what he said got garbled by the near roar that threatened to break through his throat. He paced around the room, his wings flaring up and his nostrils snorting with annoyance.

“I’m sorry I have emotions and feelings and get startled just like you do, Tim, and I’m sorry if my reactions aren’t what you want them to be and I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! And I’m sorry I keep having to say I’m sorry!”

Jon wasn’t a violent person, so when he clutched his talons into the leather of his furniture he did it without the intention of shredding it to pieces. He needed to alleviate his pent up frustrations somehow, and as he perched on top of the couch like a lion over its prey he let out a growl, deep from his inner core, pulsing to the surface until it broke into a full-blown roar that made his ears rumble and his jaw ache and his chest contract and his wings flare behind him.

Georgie lowered her volume. The Admiral jumped off her lap.

The Institute flinched, those left in the library perching up at the faint tremor in its walls, wondering for the briefest of moments what secrets the building held within its depths, and Elias in the top of his tower smirking with the knowledge of what he possessed.

When the roar subsided, Jon’s chest heaved and his throat purred with heavy breaths.

“Got that out of your system, Jon?” Georgie’s small voice piped up from his forgotten phone laying face down on the table. She patiently waited for him, even though she rather not be involved in the more disquieting aspects of his life.

“I hate him,” he simply said. He powered down, took his phone into his tense claws and curled up on the sofa, nestled against his now crumpled-up documents. Whatever, he would sort them out later. “No, that’s not true. I wish we were friends.”

Had he been alone and composed, he would have said he wished they were on better terms, more professional, but the truth of the matter was that he genuinely liked Tim, even if he was a strange human whose perspective of the world was a little bit more carefree and laced with references he technically knew but didn’t understand. The same went for Martin and Sasha, but he was afraid he had irrevocably damaged the dynamic of their team. His eyes none too gently informed him that Tim wasn’t planning on coming back, and even if he did, it would be in the company of fire.

“He hates me,” he lamented.

“Aw, Jon…” Georgie wasn’t prepared to console a weeping dragon over facetime, but her gentle voice soothed over the scabs of his hurt soul nevertheless. “Say, you like that Martin guy, don’t you?

“…Yes.”

“Have you talked to him about it?”

“A bit.”

“And he likes you too, doesn’t he? He spoke very fondly of you when I was there.”

“I suppose.” Martin’s poetry came to mind, which was about the last thing he wanted to think about.

“And what did he say to you?”

Jon remembered his soft hands on his jaw, the genuine concern in his round face, his kind voice trying to console him as best as he could in that moment. “He said I am what I am.” Among other things, but this was after Jon had explained himself and Martin had understood and believed him. “But he meant it in the good way. He wants to get used to what I am.”

“He looked like a sweetie,” Georgie said after thinking it over for a moment. “You’re not alone, Jon. I’m positive the others still like you.”

Jon’s wings bristled. She was right. The only reason why Sasha hadn’t come around as quickly as Martin was because she was more worried about Tim, not because she hated him for what he’d done.

The thought comforted him.

“Thank you, Georgie.” He pulled the phone away from his chest, and found she had the camera fixated on the Admiral, who was lying on the radiator without a care in the world. “I’m sorry I screamed so loud, Admiral. It was unbecoming of me.”

“You’re forgiven, Jon,” Georgie said comically low.

The Admiral blinked slowly, grinning at Georgie behind the camera.

* * *

It was subtle, but Jon could swear he felt tension in the air in their remaining triad. Martin seemed more insistent when he gave him his morning tea, and tried to give him his space with that understanding look in his eyes that made Jon want to sit near him instead. And Sasha seemed more worked up than she did the day before, unable to focus on her task like she usually did so well.

As predicted, Tim did not return to the archives next morning.

Jon coped by shutting himself in his office, for the most part. What he wanted was to crawl deep into his archive, or lock the door of his office and bury himself in work, but he thought of what Martin said; that he didn’t have to avoid him, or them.

He was dressed in his last pair of trousers and his less than favourite sweater and shirt. He would have to buy new clothes, something he wasn’t looking forward to, since he had to order online. Modern electronics hated him, or rather, they hated an overload of magic. He could use his laptop only for so long before it started to complain and he’d have to bring Sasha in to come fix it for him.

He also had very little sense of fashion and simply stuck with the Institute’s dress code of smart academic. His trousers must be, what, thirty years old? The last time he bought anything was back in ’09 when Gerry sold him a shirt from his band. He never saw the purpose of having a varied wardrobe, but Eric had told him once, “at least two pairs of slacks, and shirts to last you through the week. I know you think you don’t smell, but trust me, humans notice. They hate smelling other people. And don’t underestimate underwear either.”

What did his assistants care what he wore? It wasn’t like he switched his wardrobe around much anyway, sometimes forgetting to change sweaters for days in a row. So he could do with one pair of trousers, right? In fact, he could put off shopping for a while.

It wasn’t late in the morning when Sasha knocked on his door.

“Hi, Jon,” she said conversationally as he invited her in. He didn’t make eye contact, rather focused his attention on the police reports in front of him. He felt nervous about seeing his assistants again, wondered what they thought of him as he worked as a human amongst them like nothing had happened.

“Research got back to us with that Carlos Vittery statement.” She handed him the file. “Not much to it. It looked like a bunch of rubbish to me initially, but I think I caught some Prentiss subtext we might wanna check out.”

“I see,” Jon said as he studied the fairly barebones contents in the folder. “Thank you.”

Jane Prentiss seemed like a trending topic even to the outside world. Over the last month her folder became a considerable pile of news articles and statements. The Vittery case mentioned the silver wyrms too, and Jon hoped it might have some answers as how to deal with them, since they kept popping up in the archives a worrying amount. Jon considered keeping Basira informed, but she didn’t exactly work with police any longer, and right now any thought of Daisy send him into a cold shock.

Sasha hovered in front of his desk nervously, playing with the hem of her sleeve as she looked him over. “How are you?”

He considered the question. “Better,” he decided, or rather, he decided to compartmentalize his feelings. “Have you managed to get a hold of Tim?”

“Not really. Martin neither. He texted me saying he just needed some more time, but that I could call him up later, so, here’s to hoping.”

Jon nodded, flitting his eyes from her to the walls. Maybe he was glad Tim hadn’t answered them. It meant he wouldn’t have to think about Tim or have the conversations be about him. It gave Jon time to process it too.

He rather wished he spend the day in the back of the archives, prowling the contents of his hoard without the worried glances of his assistants in his direction. He remembered Martin telling Jon not to avoid him. Perhaps there was comfort in being watched over.

“I’ll get back to it, then,” Sasha said. 

He glanced at the webpage in front of him, showing the long lists of clothing he couldn’t pick from.

Sasha always tried to look nice, Jon supposed. Whereas Tim often dressed like a modern clown in Jon’s opinion and Martin dressed more for comfort, Sasha looked proper in her blouses and skirts and slacks. She wasn’t a serious woman, but she did want to be taken seriously.

Again, not that Jon had much insights about fashion, though…

Perhaps,

“Sasha, can you help me with something?”

Just as her hand touched the door, her head perked up. “Hm? What is it?”

“It might be a weird question but uhm, do you think you can help me shop?”

“Shop? Shop for what?”

“Well, eh.” Jon turned his laptop around so it faced her. Perhaps she could make sense of it. He had no idea where to look, what website to go to, so to be sure he had about twenty tabs open. “There’s about 1.5 billion search results for brown trousers. I can’t really choose.”

She grinned impishly. “You really burst through it yesterday, did you?”

Sure, they could all laugh about it now. Part of the roar he had let out was because of how much it fucking hurt his tail. “Yes,” he said chagrined. “Do you– can you help me?”

“Sure, I guess.” She sat on the chair in front of him, taking his laptop and turning it to face them both as she started scrolling through one of the websites. “Well, what is your budget? What do you need?”

“Just some slacks. I could just pick one but, oh, I don’t know. I’m not good at clothes. I’ve never shopped before.”

She perked up. “Really, never?”

“No?”

“But aren’t you like thirty years old?”

“I’ve had my human body for about thirty years, yes. But I never picked out my clothes. They were a gift.”

“Oh, I see.”

She browsed through the webpages, closed half of them, and typed in her own URL’s, seemingly deciding at random what items were relevant or not. “So in terms of style, I think you could really go for that dark academia look. Autumn tones with a touch of dark, wool, chic. Vintage suits you. Just not literal vintage, I think, maybe. Err, sorry. Do you like shirts? What’s your budget?”

“My budget is…” Jon technically knew he had a bank account, but he hardly spend anything from it. His last purchase had been the laptop when the archives switched to a modern filing system, and before that a couple of books, cd’s, a shirt. “I’ve got some saved up from since I started working in the Institute, but I have no idea what the limit is for clothing.”

She stared at him. “How much do you get paid?”

He thought about it, since he never consciously had to. “I should have been getting the same amount as you guys. Considering inflation over the past hundred years, minus the Institute’s rent, plus I never _spend_ anything. Oh god.” A horrible realisation came to him. “I’m rich.”

Sasha’s eyebrows shot up.

And all that money had been piling up in his bank account. Jon stared into the distance. “I’m a money hoarder. What a waste.”

“Let’s discuss the implications of your wealth later. Should we go all out, since you never ever shop?” She clicked the trackpad a couple of times and immediately added a handful of items to the shopping basket.

Jon didn’t know what to make of that. “I just need some trousers.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jon, you’ve given me all this power. I intend to use it. Now, do you have a preference for styles? Cuts? Practicality?”

At this point she wasn’t even looking at trousers anymore. Jon shrugged uselessly. “These pants are fine. Not too baggy, or tight.”

“Okay.” She looked at him, clearly wanting him to elaborate. He frantically thought of something to say.

“I like sweaters, I suppose. I like it when they stretch, and when clothes have buttons. I can’t get my coat on comfortably otherwise.”

Blouses were a handful already; precariously placing them on his back, trying to fumble in at least one arm, then his coat, then pull it all straight and worm cloth through holes and shift skin against cotton and all that annoying sensory business.

“Oh! That makes sense.”

She scrolled through accessories (why?), sweaters (alright), turtlenecks (annoying but doable), t-shirts (not interested) before her cursor hovered over the skirts tab. She bit her lip, her finger dancing over the trackpad.

“How do you feel about skirts?” she said tentatively.

Although it wasn’t explicitly stated in the dress code, Elias wasn’t the type of man who endorsed his employees to wear them. Then again, Elias was hundreds of years old, and was most definitely no stranger to men in skirts and dresses and togas and the like. Two-faced bastard.

“I wouldn’t be averse to wearing them,” he said.

There was the briefest of smiles on her lips as she clicked the tab. “I was thinking, if you want the freedom to transform more often, skirts might be a good alternative to ripping your bottoms out.”

Jon wondered if there was even any use in pretending to be human anymore. Martin and Sasha were so insistent in seeing him be him, even though he still had uses for his human form. For one, it brought him to eye level with humans instead of being looked down on. Carrying boxes was easier with two hands and two legs made for bipedal walking. And without his wings they wouldn’t have to worry about secrets and private matters spilling from their lips.

But he also liked to flap his wings, and he liked to greet everybody by sniffing them when they came in, and know about artefacts and statements by taking in their smells and taste, and he could growl freely whenever he wanted, and eat little bugs without Martin giving him weird looks, even if it was all a bit strange to them.

“You can add one to the cart,” he said.

“Or twenty-three.”

“A-ah, no, no. Not the short ones please.”

She really did look like a power-hungry Desolation as she viewed the final list of items in her (Jon’s) shopping cart. It was sort of exciting in a way he rarely felt. The clothes she picked out for him were like little gifts he already knew of, only he’d have to wait for them to actually arrive. Dragons typically didn’t wear clothes. Accessories at most. It was a strange custom to bond over, like Stranger dragons swapping skins to see what face they liked best, only with the macabre aspect dialled down completely. It was surprising that he could share this with her, that he could have a little bit of fun with her after yesterday.

There was a change in the dynamic between the archivist and his assistants, but maybe he’d have to trust that people followed up on their good intentions.

When the bill came out at well over two-hundred pounds, Sasha forced him to donate to Mermaids.

(The charity, not actual mermaids. God knew what those creatures would do with that sort of money.)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An ending of some sorts. But not _the_ ending just yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never say this but thank you Gabby ([@alocal_cryptid on twitter](https://twitter.com/ALocal_Cryptid)) so much for ur support, and some funny lines in the chat section. And you too Sandra, I love you.
> 
> This is a long one. Hope you like it! It's a culmination of some plot points.... Hope I pulled it off.
> 
> Ah also, I have no intention of removing the real Sasha from the story. No Not!Sasha in this one, even if the text might hint a little bit.

**Message history with Martin B.**

_Tim  
15:42  
_Fuck Martin are you still at work??

 _Martin  
__16:08  
_Yeah

 _Tim  
__16:08  
_Shit are you ok???  
Did he do anything to you??

 _Martin  
__16:13  
_I’m fine  
Jon told me what happened  
How are you doing?

 _16:18  
_Tim?  
You probably need some rest…

 _16:30  
_He said he pulled a statement out of you  
I’m sorry that happened Tim :(   
Jon is too  
He didn't mean to Look at you like that  
His coat makes him a human when he wears it  
But you probably figured that out already…  
Sasha’s here too. We told her what happened. She’s pretty worried about you. 

_Tim  
__16:35_  
Fucks sake.

 _Martin  
__17:04_  
?

* * *

**Message history with Sasha J.**

_Sasha  
__16:14  
_Tim!!  
I just got back  
Are you okay??

 _Tim  
__16:15  
_No

 _Sasha  
16:15  
_Jon told me what happened  
I’m so sorry he did that to you  
I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like to go through that again

 _Tim  
2:48_  
Thanks

 _Sasha  
__9:21  
_How are you doing?  
Do you want to talk?

 _Tim  
__10:02  
_Later  
Maybe  
Need some space  
Glad to hear he didn’t suck out you guy’s biggest trauma

 _Sasha  
__10:10  
_No problem  
If it makes you feel better he said it was an accident  
He’s very sorry

 _Tim  
__10:13  
_Awesome  
Call you later

* * *

_(missed call from Sasha James 19:14)  
_ _(started call with Sasha James 19:16)_

“Hey, Sash.”

“Hey, Tim.” Her voice was soft as she spoke. “How are you feeling?”

Tim sighed deeply. “Feel shitty.”

“I can imagine.”

“Can you, Sash? Can you really? Because I actually thought I’d forgotten most of it. Haven’t had dreams for like two years. But along came Jon, staring at me like I’m the last donut in the box. I know he did something to me. I know he saw it too. Just flashes of that night. Dancing. Fucking- dragons. Music.”

“Sounds like a party.”

The laugh Tim let out was almost delirious. 

“Christ…” It wasn’t anything to laugh at. He couldn’t get it out of his mind, all the details and the way his memory warped what happened. And then it snapped back to attention like he relived it again. “The dreams are back. Just as vivid as they used to be, like he put a video tape in my brain or something, just looping all night long. ‘Hey, in case you forgot, that one dragon was wearing a silly blue hat and had a face like a rolled out clay puppet!’ Love it. 

“I don’t even know what he did when he looked at me. Like, proper Looked at me with capital L. I can’t even explain what happened.”

Sasha was silent for a moment as she heard him out. 

“The way Jon explained it to us is that he eats statements. The fear or trauma I guess, related to encounters with dragons. He doesn’t do it, or rather, he can’t do it while wearing his coat, but when it’s off it’s apparently a little hard to control. I think he doesn’t eat much. I mean, you’ve seen what he looks like as a human. All skin and bones. But it doesn’t look that different from when he’s a dragon. So gaunt. I don’t think the written statements feed him all that much, so when you pulled off his coat he sort of lost control.”

“... Of course he hired me. He brought me in for dinner, why not.”

“Tim, that’s not what he meant.”

“How do you know what he means? Why can’t he lie about it being an ‘accident’. God, Martin said the same thing and he SAW it happen. Jon was just… He loomed over me, and his eyes, Sasha. Jesus, his eyes.”

“Yeah, I know. He showed them to us.”

“WHAT!?!”

“They didn’t look at us! They were just twitching around. Startled me, yeah. Really freaky. But he didn’t pull anything out of me, I don’t think.”

“You don’t think,” Tim deadpanned.

“Tim, you’ve seen them. You knew when he pulled it out of you.”

“Yeah, I guess you would notice...” Tim rubbed a hand over his weary face. “But what do we actually know about his powers? Are you guys really okay? Is it even really Sasha who’s on the phone?”

“Yeah, Tim. It’s still me. Same old Martin and me.” She didn’t sound dismissive at all, even if Tim went full paranoid on her. “Jon’s got some pretty weird powers, but I don’t think he’s got the ability to change shape or make us transform into something else or makes us say stuff we don’t want to say. For what it’s worth, he really is sorry.”

“Tell me if something happens to you, okay? Promise me you’ll tell me the truth.”

“...Okay, Tim. I promise,” she said softly. “You know what else he said, Tim?”

“What?”

“That he wears the coat for us.”

“... Why would he do that?”

“Why do you think? Because he doesn’t want us to be afraid of him, or any of his assistants. Think about it. Martin saw him by accident because he worked late without telling him. I only saw him that one time because I asked. 

“You should’ve seen Martin shaking with excitement. Actually, he said he was really cross with Jon before I came in. Oh, to be a fly in a room with an angry Martin.”

* * *

From: **Elias Bouchard  
**To: **Timothy Stoker  
**Subject: **Meeting RE: absence**

Dear Tim,

Tomorrow marks the day of your two week absence from work. I have been more than lenient in allowing you time off to recover from the incident between you and Jonathan, and I think it is within both our interest if we had a conversation about whether or not you are ready to join us again. I would like to meet you tomorrow at 13:18 sharp to discuss your continued employment or possible resignation. 

Kind regards, 

**_Head of The Magnus Institute_  
**Elias Bouchard

* * *

From: **Timothy Stoker**  
To: **Elias Bouchard  
**Subject: **RE:** **Meeting RE: absence**

I already said I want to quit. But sure, I’ll meet.

Tim

* * *

From: **Elias Bouchard  
**To: **Timothy Stoker  
**Subject: **RE: RE:** **Meeting RE: absence**

Dear Tim,

As I said, we shall discuss this issue in person.

Kind regards,

 **_Head of The Magnus Institute_  
**Elias Bouchard

* * *

**Message history with Sasha J.**

_Sasha  
__12:34  
_HILY SHIT KANR PRENTISS IS ATTACKING THE JNSTIDNTUE  
*ARCHVINES

 _Tim  
12:38  
_WHAT!??

 _Sasha  
__12:42  
_Attachment _29072016_mp4_  
FUCKGIN YUCK

 _Tim  
__12:44  
_IS THAT HER?????

 _Sasha  
12:46  
_YES

 _Tim  
__12:46  
_Isnt jon with you??  
Can’t he do anything???  
Sasha???

1 _2:48  
_Sasha??? _  
_ Fuck I had to come over anyway  
Hold on  
Pls dont be dead

* * *

Jon had once explained how the Web dragons weren’t very well known. The disparity of dragon types was clearest when compared to the Spiders. Less reptilian, many limbed gluttonous monsters carefully pulling their strands with sharp thin talons and luring humans deep into the woods, or piloting them from within their own nests, invisible to their prey. The humans who saw them, if they allowed them to speak of their existence at all, often wrote them off as a different species altogether, like giant arachnids, or wrote off the puppeteering magic to wicked magicians. Victims of the Spiders rarely got to see the creatures pulling the strings, Jon said. Martin could see that. He didn’t think ever heard of those kind of dragons.

The near empty file of Carlos Vittery lingered in the back of his mind. It had a connection to Prentiss, so it was sort of important, but Jon hadn’t asked anything about his actual statement. Research came back with an autopsy report that revealed magic residue inside of the spider husk he was found as, but what sort of creature it had been that did things like that, they weren’t certain of.

Jon knew, of course. He was certain it was the Web who’d gotten to Mr Vittery and insisted neither Martin nor Sasha should investigate. He did this a lot with Web statements. He couldn’t stop research from doing their thing, and Martin saw the voracity with which he took in their reports, but when it came to his assistants, Jon was very adamant about them never ever digging deeper into statements about spiders than they absolutely had to.

But Jon was so timid lately. He didn’t make a lot of conversation, sometimes ducked away in the back of the archives to skulk around and was even more direct when he wanted something investigated.

Martin thought that if he could look into the case a bit deeper Jon would be happier, but Jon said no, whatever terror the Spiders wrought, he could investigate himself, but he was not going to send out his assistants.

“Are you really sure you don’t want us to investigate? His file is pretty barebones.”

“I’m sure of it, Martin. We can’t be safe enough.”

Martin let it go, because his willpower couldn’t do much against that voice, all convincing and low and caring.

Maybe it really had been the Spiders who send the tiny spider on Jon’s desk. Maybe the archives were just dusty. The result was all the same; Jon saw it sitting there, instantly panicked, smashed his hand on top of it and somehow managed to knock over an entire bookcase and send it hurtling through the wall.

When a spiral of slimy disgusting winged worms burst through the plaster like a hurricane, everything went a little crazy.

Martin never thought that the archives were safe. Maybe that first week, when he hadn’t fully grasped what it was they researched. But after that, after seeing Jon and finding out what kinds of documents and artefacts they actually collected, he felt like there was a good chance he’d be killed by some malfunctioning wizard’s staff from artefact storage or something.

And then Jane Prentiss showed up, leaving all of those half-not-dragon wyrms lying around. There were only a few, nothing a sweep of a broom couldn’t fix. And they couldn’t do much but chew through paper and gnaw lamely on Martin’s sweater and shoes, which was always fixed by Jon munching on them.

Curses and random vermin were what Martin came to understand as the Institute’s median of ‘unsafe’. That, he could deal with. Martin did not expect a reptile hurricane flying over his head.

They were big, much bigger than the ones he remembered from when Jane Prentiss came to give her statement. Back then their wings had been weak, flapping with strain as their tiny bodies flopped around on the floor. But these were as long as his hand, snake-like, and much sturdier with defined white scales and long claws attached to wings. This time when they bit, it hurt like hell.

Before either Jon or Martin could reach the door, the creatures flocked to them. They were an impenetrable field of sharp flapping wings and hungry mouths, cutting off Jon and Martin’s path by sheer mass and destroyed furniture. Jon tried to move through them, but they latched onto the both of them, and Martin screamed as their sharp needle teeth punctured his skin.

Jon growled, and Martin didn’t think he had ever heard a such a guttural sound coming from a human being’s throat.

Jon wasn’t very courageous. Martin saw the panic in his eyes and his raised shoulders like a scared cat, but Jon dove at Martin, his hands grasping the long slippery tails of the dragons to pull them out of him before considering pulling out his own.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Martin groaned, clenching a wound on his arm and bracing himself against the wall. “I can’t move.”

“Hold on, Martin,” Jon said, his body placed between Martin and the swarm as he pulled the wyrms off one by one.

Two things became painfully clear: There was no way to the door, and the bites of the wyrms hurt too much to risk moving. They were trapped, and it was only Jon’s small body between Martin and the horde of violent reptiles that kept at least Martin safe.

Jon looked rough. His coat was unscathed, almost like a ward against the wyrms though they squirmed like leeches in every bit of exposed skin. Jon’s eyes winced with pain.

“Martin,” he groaned. “I have to transform. Don’t look.”

Martin didn’t have to be told twice. Other than the mental image of Jon pulling down his zipper flushing his ears, the blood on his arms where the creatures tried to dig in was making him sick. He held his arms over his head, eyes closed, curled in on himself as Jon protected him as much as he could.

But then the wyrms stopped attacking, and the light in front of Martin’s eyelids dimmed as well as the sound of their flapping and screeching. They were quieter now as a larger beat of wings momentarily dislodged Martin from the hurricane in the office air.

“Jon?”

Martin opened his eyes. The wyrms hadn’t stopped. Surrounding him on all sides were Jon’s dark wings, protecting him from the onslaught that now wrecked havoc against Jon’s back. His long neck curved around him. With his long teeth he pulled out the last of the slippery wyrm from Martin’s trembling hand and ate it.

“Fuck, this hurts so bad,” Jon said, almost whined.

Martin sat stiff against the wall with Jon practically hovering over him. Jon leaned on Martin’s knees. His long neck curved around his back and his face hung close too his ear. Nervousness and worry made him shake, and he wished Jon pressed a little less in on him, but Martin couldn’t possibly say something about it now, not when the wyrms continued to pounce into Jon unrelenting while he protected Martin. Jon let out a high-pitched animalistic whine that had his heart aching.

His heart beat as quick as the flapping of wings, and his mind raced as he thought of what they could do, because Jon was too busy focusing on not screaming out in pain.

“Can we reach the door?” His office wasn’t that big. Maybe if they could move with Jon covering him–

“I–I’m sorry. It’s too far away. And a shelf collapsed against it. I can’t guarantee I can cover you entirely while I dig us out. You’d get eaten alive.”

“And the other one?” The one bolted shut. The one he never spoke about.

Except for the occasional whine, Jon was silent as he thought it over. “No,” he said decisively. “That’s even more trouble.”

“Jon, we can’t stay in here.”

“I know, I… We’ll think of something. I’ve had worse.”

“Worse than this!?”

“There’s always worse.”

Not for the first time did Martin consider Jon’s age, his life in the Institute and before it, and what sort of hardship Jon went through as a dragon. Was it normal for dragons to be chased by these fears too? Could they be fed on as well?

“Why are they here?” Martin said.

“They want something,” Jon said between groans. “But Prentiss is still in the tunnels and I can’t see in there.“

“What tunnels? Behind the hole?”

“Yes,” Jon groaned, a worrisome rumble in Martin’s eardrums. Martin had thought the occasional wyrm were leftovers from when Jane visited last month, becoming a minor infestation under the wooden floor, but she’d been here all along right under their noses.

“Martin, you’re still carrying the dirt with you.”

“Dirt? The– oh! Yes.” Uncomfortable in his position, Martin shuffled as he fingered the compressed earth from his breast pocket, wincing as his hurt flesh twisted with the movement. “I almost forgot I had it.”

“You can use it,” Jon said, though it felt more like asking for affirmation, a hopeful one.

“What, against them?! Jon, I’m not too great at magic.”

With an ear-splitting cry, Jon shook his wings once. Martin winced at the loud sound next to his ear and felt guilty much the same over how much it must hurt him. Jon arched his back, giving them both just a whiff more breathing space, but he contracted just as quickly as wyrms threatened to wiggle through the gaps.

“Try, Martin. Please.”

“Right. Right.” He owed Jon at least that. He mumbled, “How did that go again?”

He thought back on the book on spells. The one for dummies that explained intent, emotions, and what sort of things you could say to bring the magic forth. The words didn’t have to be entirely right, as long as he knew what he wanted. Well, he wanted them off Jon’s back, so he probably needed a spray of foam to really push them off, right?

“Foam, I want you to come to me!” He reached out his hands, stiff with blood and adrenaline, brushing against the smallest gaps where Jon’s wings came together, and tried to pull that sense of magic from the earth. As expected only spurts came out, just like when they practiced. Useless, but he couldn’t give up. He tried it again, “Fast!”

Jon groaned, either in annoyance or because of the continued hurt. “Perhaps you should say… something different.”

“But I can’t make up spells.”

Not like Tim. For him, everything he said seemed to work. He’d just sputtered them out at fire safety training day, not even really that eloquent. Sure, he almost gassed them to death, but what he conjured up had been pretty impressive. Martin was the one who needed to be impressive now. For Jon. To protect him as much as he protected Martin.

Jon curled in on him. Almost in encouragement, Martin hoped. Jon’s voice, though underlined with a low rumble, was surprisingly soft as he spoke, “Nonsense, Martin. You’re a poet. Speak from the heart. **What are you feeling?** ”

Martin was good at lying. He knew he was even if he didn’t want to be good at it. He had been awkward all his life, embarrassed of his truths so much that the lies he spoke sowed together the scattered pieces that were Martin to fit like a glove. Lying was easy, because then he could speak what he needed into existence.

But as Jon asked him the question not of _what_ he felt, but _how_ he felt, there was clarity in his mind like there’d never been before. His heartbeat was as equally important as the fear which he felt not just for himself but for Jon, who started to tremble with pain and whose wings tried to no avail to shake off the nasty buggers digging into his flesh. It felt important to tell Jon, like there was no way he could possibly lie. Why should he lie when he knew exactly what to say?

“I’m scared for us,” he began. “I want to get out of here, preferably in one piece. And I want them to get off of you; I _hate_ them for hurting you. I _hate_ it. I want to protect you like you’re protecting me. I… I didn’t think you would ever do something like this for me.”

Martin reached out his hands again, and Jon made way for him as he strained his fingers over the curve of his beautiful wings, his cheek brushing the strong muscle of Jon’s neck like a hug. “I want them to choke! Yeah! Fucking choke on this, Prentiss!”

There it was. A surface of brine cascading down Jon’s wings who sighed with such visible relief Martin was worried he’d sag down on top of him. The wyrms flapped wetly against the choking foam as Jon rumbled contently against Martin’s chest.

“T-That’s right! Choke! Choke, choke, choke!”

“You worry me, Martin.”

It wasn’t enough. As Martin peeked over Jon’s shoulders, he saw there were still more flapping mini dragons emerging from the hole. The entire office was a whirlwind of chaos. They swirled still, clutching to bookshelves and papers and secreting their slime all over and ruining what must’ve been decades of work. But Jon’s back was white with foam, and the tails and wings stuck inside it were motionless and slowly dripping out. Martin quickly ducked his head down again before a wyrm plunged straight into his eye.

“Hold on,” Jon said puzzled, his face rising up. “That’s–“

Jon was interrupted by Tim bursting through the wall like a human cannonball.

“Tim!” Martin said surprised, poking his head up along with Jon’s.

“Choke on this, you fucking lizards!”

And Tim, eyes blown wide and high off his rocker, covered the room in blasts of nitrous oxide, seemingly without regard for the two people cowering in the corner of the room, and Martin did choke on it as white clouded the air and the little shadows of raging wyrms dropped to the floor. Tim stood triumphant in front of the hole he made, the mist framing him like a proper hero as his magic erupted from his hands.

“You’re back!” Jon said with a voice a tad too broken. He shook off the foam, and it disappeared on its own as the magic faded from the air, leaving behind blood and painfully broken scales, and dead wyrms still buried in his skin.

When Tim found Martin huddled under Jon’s wings, horror struck his face. It was a crazed sort of look as he looked down on them, with his eyes round as cups, grimacing at Jon as the implications formed in his mind.

“Don’t eat that man!” he said dazed.

“Tim,” Martin said choked. “I can’t breathe.”

“Hold on, Martin, I have to save you first,” Tim said stupidly, waving his arms around and stepping over rubble.

Jon stood up on his hind legs then, his wings wafting in the air as he cleared the smoke around them. Tim startled at the sudden movement. Gone was his bravado. He stood rigid, staring at Jon, his hands trembling as if trying to calm a wild animal or was about to cast any more of his magic. His eyes still looked like they were ready to pop out of his sockets, though.

Martin coughed, trying to suction good air into his lungs. He tried to stand up, which was a mistake with how much the holes in his legs hurt.

“You get away from here, Marto!” Tim said, readying his stance and hovering his hands in front of him. “And no funny business, you,” he directed at Jon. “Or I blow up the place. That’s right. I can do fire now.”

Martin didn’t think that was very fair. Tim had decided to never show up at work again, not listen out on Jon’s explanation, and decided all on his own that Jon was evil, always had been evil, and did everything with the intention of being evil without any room for remorse. So Martin scowled as Tim started to look more and more like a cartoon villain.

“He saved me, Tim. Geesh, we got bigger things to worry about right now!”

“I agree,” Jon said. He backed away from Martin, falling onto his feet with a groan. He nosed the wounds in Martin’s legs tentatively, sniffing them, before facing Tim with fire in his pupils. He stalked over to him. “Prentiss is in my archives, so get out of my way, Tim.”

Tim flinched.

“Fuck,” Tim cursed under his breath. He did back away, like a kid paralysed with fear cornered by a snarling dog, though the slight swaying of his head made him look more awestruck than anything. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, you’re tiny. No wonder you haven’t eaten Martin yet. Wait, has he sucked your memories out with his wings yet? Ohhh fuck, don’t come closer.”

The dead wyrms still buried their heads into Jon’s scaly hide. There weren’t many, and the thicker row of scutes on Jon’s back seemed to protect him from most of the damage, but the flesh around his wounds was still red with blood and the scales were a dull brown without the purple shimmer that made them look so alive.

Though Martin could see the jitter in his wings and tail, Jon was patient as he waited for Tim to move. Jon flicked his tongue, keeping his head low.

“I’m sorry for what I did. I truly am. Please don’t hurt me.”

And Tim, with an expression of utter confusion, balled his fists and allowed Jon to pass through.

“Wait, Jon! Your wounds.” Martin called after him, searching for leverage against the wrecked walls as he tried to stand up. But Jon put on a good trot and Martin’s legs ached with pain, and Jon already raced out of the office and into the archives, dead white wyrms dropping off of him as he went.

“Get eaten by snakes you sorry sack of lizard!” Tim called after him.

Martin was out of breath, wincing as he fell down onto the floor again. “Can’t you help him?”

“What do I care if his archive gets destroyed. He deserves it.” Tim wobbled over to Martin and offered his arm.

“No, he doesn’t! And-” and if it was, Martin was probably out of a job. And though the salary turned out to be so not worth it, he really needed this job. And Tim just as well and Sasha- “Sasha! Is she okay? Where is she?”

“In the break room. She’s fine. Got to her before the worms did,” Tim said as he put his shoulder under Martin’s arm and helped him off the ground. “Hey, I feel really fuzzy. Apologies in advance if I go down, by the way, ‘cos I’ll take you right with me.”

The wyrms were everywhere.

Jon roared from out of the archives, a sound that had Martin’s already shaking legs vibrating to the bone. Martin pitied the thing on the receiving end of that roar.

Jon had her cornered. His archive was chaos, beating wings and shredded paper and slime secreted over everything they crawled over as Jon screamed at the woman to get out.

Martin glimpsed at the creature that had once been Jane Prentiss, her skin no skin at all, bulging in a form Martin didn’t understand until a white head writhed out of the holes and he almost retched. She wasn’t human anymore. Not at all.

“Oh, that is wrong,” Tim said, paving the way by blowing gas at everything that moved, and trudged on with Martin in tow.

* * *

Jane Prentiss did not smell like new magic anymore. The rot had taken over, warping her fully into one of the Corruption. She had wings, a quadruped body that seemed to want to stand upright, and the leathery skin that had previously twisted around her flesh like she’d scraped it on concrete was now hardened and segregated into defined scales, though bulging with her spawn that ate their way out of her when they were ready to do so.

She looked pitiful, is what Jon thought right after he roared and told her to leave his archive. She was destroying it, his years of work. She tossed the books and statements and files aside with no regard for his hoard. It was _his_. She had no right to come this far into his domain, wrecking _his_ collection.

He tackled her, brought her to the ground as her spawn zapped around him trying to penetrate his skin even more.

His body was fuelled by adrenaline, amplified by the holes and wyrms clinging to his back. The wyrms had no true direction, only used Prentiss as their breeding ground and home, so there was no sense to their attack on his documents. They much rather preferred a warm body. Well, Jon was the closest thing. His reptilian body cold but slightly warmer than the rest of his archive, so much of their ire was directed at him instead of the frail paper and carton. But that did not mean they left it alone completely, and before he could snap at the wyrms the front rows were already ravaged.

“ **Why are you doing this?** ” He growled in her face, the compulsion in his voice thick with need and anger. Her hollow bones creaked when he pressed against her chest as hard as he could. The wyrm hatchlings in it squirmed under his feet.

She cackled a good witch cackle from her new dragon throat and snapped her jaws at Jon’s. “Dunno. It was an _itch_ I had to scratch.”

She flipped him over just as easily, as if they were playing. But then her face twisted like a human grimacing, an expression not made for bestial faces, and her playfulness was gone. “This place is a wrong place. This place made me like this.”

“That’s not true. The Hive took you in.”

She screeched an awful screech. “You know how! You have the knowledge! You can twist and warp and become, just like me!”

“We’re not the same, Prentiss.” Her hold was strong. On his back he felt off balance, and it hurt to have her full body weight on top of his lightweight frame.

She continued, “But they can’t know what you know.”

The secrets of dragons, the ones he carefully filed away with the rest of his knowledge. “No,” he agreed with her, a pressure in his chest as he spoke. “They can’t.”

“So I destroy it.”

She sprinted off of him, diving into the rows of the archive. Jon stumbled as he turned around, the wyrms flapping around his head for the briefest of moments before he snapped his jaws around them, and chased after Prentiss.

“STOP!” he yelled, nearly pleaded with her. There was no direction to where she was going. She picked cabinets and shelves at random, spitting her vile slime over their contents, and Jon cried with frustration.

It was when she climbed a shelf that he jumped at her, his jaws clenching around her ankles, bringing her down to the ground with thud.

“ENOUGH!” he commanded as he held her down. This time his nails dug into her flesh, and for good measure he placed his fangs around the torn skin of her neck in case she tried to run again.

He wouldn’t snap them together. That wasn’t the kind of horrible he was. He just needed her put, stop her digging through his archive and messing it all up.

“I shouldn’t have given in,” she gasped under his jaws.

Jon already knew she regretted completing the transformation and assimilation into the Hive. She’d said the same in her statement. No matter how much her fears aligned with the dragons, they were different, monstrous. Humans didn’t long for communion like larvae nests.

She might understand the community of the Hive, but she did not understand dragons. A dragon wouldn’t invade another’s domain, festering like an infection in the walls as if she belonged there. Especially hidden from his knowledge in the tunnels claimed by the Dark. There was no fear to be gained here, this was not a place to crawl back to and call it home. Not hers. She did not belong to his hoard. And his hoard would no longer be harmed by her.

He released his grip on her throat and spread his wings and eyes wide.

“You were too compatible. You wanted to belong and used their magic to twist yourself and warp yourself into something they would accept as their own. You sought out how to do it, and as a reward they infected you.” Jon couldn’t help the growl deep in his throat. “And now you want to destroy everything I have.”

Jon was not a violent beast, but he had found out he was a territorial one.

Her wet eyes bulged as Jon came to Know her, unravelled her secrets and catalogued them. He snarled and flicked his tongue as the familiar human fear resurfaced in her eyes.

Before he could truly take a bite, Tim stormed the archive, and it wasn’t Jon’s apperception that did her in, but the gasses of Tim’s choking magic.

* * *

Jon dragged Prentiss through the hallways by the teeth, her mangled body spewing bile and the last of her squirming brood. Her wyrms were dead, at least the full-grown ones, but she left a trail of slime and weak newborns behind her as they made their way towards the courtyard where she would be burned. It was a long while since Martin had seen Tim and Jon stand next to each other, and for the first time since they met, they looked synergic as they marched together up front.

They were lucky the Institute had evacuated. The display of a half transformed dragon woman would surely gather a few onlookers, but Elias had pulled the fire alarm, so the hallways were silent except for Jon’s nails ticking on the hard-wooden and tiled floors and the footsteps of his assistants.

Jon dropped her unceremoniously onto grass.

“Last words?” Jon said as her body squirmed. Her wings bend awkwardly, and her snout flopped weirdly like she’d broken it or if there weren’t any bones in it. Martin tried not to look too much at her.

Tim nodded. “You are horrid and didn’t want this body anymore in the end. Fire will probably solve it.”

Terrible eulogy, Martin thought as smoke erupted from Tim’s hands to turn Jane Prentiss’ body to ash.

The scraps of red dress that still clung to her leathery body caught fire as soon as Tim’s hands touched her, and soon her skin blackened with it. It stunk terribly of burnt hair and roasted meat. Martin was envious of Sasha, who stayed in the breakroom and hadn’t wanted to see her burn. But Martin needed confirmation that it would be done and that she wouldn’t come back, even if it still hurt to walk.

“Guys,” Martin said as he watched her body go up in flames, “this is pretty messed up.”

“Yes,” Jon said, and that was that.

* * *

“What a smoke break can’t do for workplace camaraderie. Pardon the pun. Anyway, we offer counselling and therapy if any of you start to have trouble sleeping and want that to change,” Elias said with an inexplicable smug expression on his face. Albeit a bit reluctantly, the assistants thanked him for his help, and he left.

Then it was just the assistants and the archivist, sitting uncomfortably in the break room.

“Oh! Jon,” Sasha said, kneeling down in front of their boss. “Let’s get these out.”

“Huh? Oh…”

Martin joined in too. Their hands hovered over his beaten skin. Dead wyrms clung to lose scales or had their heads buried in his flesh. It made Martin wince as he pulled them out, seeing their bodies plucked out of holes far deeper than he felt comfortable watching. As expected, Jon whined a whole lot as they carefully but insistently pulled them out and leaned into them when a particularly stubborn wyrm was wrung loose.

It felt like a hug, much more indulgent than when Jon protected him in his office, but it made Martin feel just as safe. It made Martin think of when he was younger. His neighbours had a huge mastiff dog. A great hairy beast that loved Martin just as much as he was afraid of it. It was so heavy that Martin, still a fairly small boy at the age of nine, could be covered from head to toe when it pounced on him, its bushy tail wagging lazily on the floor behind it, impervious to Martin’s near panic. Its breath had been heavy and oppressing, and its nose curious as it brushed against Martin.

That was sort of what it felt like as Jon leaned into Sasha and him. Unlike the mastiff, Jon had no thick fur, so Martin wasn’t spitting hairs every few seconds, but he did bleed and the sight of it was worse than any fear Martin ever had for the dog.

Fantasy overtook him for a moment, and he ran his hand along the smooth scales of Jon’s neck where wyrms hadn’t dug in. Jon didn’t seem to mind, but Martin felt a cheeky sort of excitement petting him.

Jon sniffed them as they worked.

“What are you doing?” Sasha asked, offering Jon a dead wyrm she just pulled out of him, which he declined.

“I’m checking to see if you’re alright,” Jon answered.

“Yeah, I’m okay. All bandaged up, see?” Martin showed him his arm, his ruined sweater pulled up and his wounds neatly covered in gauze. Jon’s tongue flicked over it lightly.

They were fine, though Jon checked them over anyways. His long neck curved around them, his nostrils flaring over their hair, his thick neck growling as he breathed so closely to Martin’s ear it made his heart jitter.

Tim was silent as he bandaged himself up, watching them work on the opposite side of the room. Most of the damage was superficial, just scrapes and minor bites. Lucky him. He was still out of it, though significantly less than when he had blown himself gung-ho through the wall, his giddiness making way for wooziness as he slumped in his chair.

“And Tim,” Jon said. He didn’t follow up on it, like he asked him something and was waiting for Tim to react.

Tim flipped him the bird. “All right, see? Now stop staring. You’re creeping me out.”

Jon averted his gaze, nosed Martin’s trousers as he stood upright to fall back into a chair. Once again, he didn’t think that was very fair of Tim.

“So,” Tim said awkwardly. “Sasha was right. You’re really tiny.”

Jon didn’t react. Sasha smirked and gave him an, “I know, right.”

“You kill things often?” Tim asked conversationally.

This made Jon snap his head up. Martin did a double-take.

“Dragons, and stuff,” Tim continued, his leg bouncing nervously.

“No,” Jon said. “I don’t like to kill.”

“Huh. Hm.”

While Tim thought this over, Martin found it increasingly harder to be in the same room as Jon and him, but he was worried something bad would happen between the two if he didn’t stay. He shared a look with Sasha who seemed to think the same, and they sat quietly, eyeing the old coffee rings on the table.

“I think we have some matters to discuss.” Jon turned to Sasha and Martin. “Could you give us some privacy? If that’s alright with you, Tim?”

Tim balled his fist on the table and rubbed his thumb over his fingers in thought. He met Martin’s eyes, then Sasha’s. “I think I prefer they stay.”

* * *

Tim felt far too much. Elated. Scared. Anxious. Sort of giddy, and he felt like cracking jokes, which he hadn’t wanted to do for weeks now. The nitrous oxide was probably doing some funny things to his brain, but if it made facing the dragon easier, then he welcomed it with open arms.

Jon didn’t look murderous. He looked like an emotionless reptile, his eyes half-lidded; a drastic change from the rupturing gaze he’d been seeing every time he let his mind wander. He had found him hugging Martin in the rubble of the office, keeping him safe from flying snakes. He’d been so confused he wanted to laugh.

And then Tim had killed Prentiss for him, and they walked together to burn her remains. Like old chums.

Jon had her under his feet, ready to kill any moment. She knew she was prey. Tim saw it in her eyes, and Jon’s, for that matter. The same hundreds of eyes peering down at her.

“I want to preface that I’m truly, terribly sorry, Tim,” Jon said. He had his wings closed, thankfully. As he breached the distance between them, Tim nearly drove himself up the wall from anxiety. He kept still, however, and tried not to move too much. His head was spinning despite the magic having evaporated after he’d killed Prentiss.

Just because Jon said he didn’t like to kill, didn’t mean he never had.

“Can you tell me one thing?” Tim said.

“Of course.”

“Whose face do you wear.”

Sasha intercepted, “Tim, I don’t think-”

Jon on the other hand didn’t look surprised by the question. “It’s my own face, Tim. I can’t steal faces. I’m not a Stranger. If I was, I would’ve changed my appearance every other week. They are not comfortable with being perceived as a solid individual for long periods of time.”

That made sense. He hated that it made sense. It would’ve been easier to set his hands aflame and burn the hell out of Jon too, but there was that stupid sensible voice in the back of his head that said, ‘but you found him protecting Martin’. Without Jon, he lacked the perspective to understand what the Strangers were.

“You want to quit,” Jon continued as Tim thought over his answer.

Did he really? He had joined the Institute because they knew about magic and dragons, and if there was somewhere he could actually discover what it was that had taken his brother, it would be here. Without it, he was lost, stripped of his closure. Then all of it would’ve been for nothing. He’d been thinking about it. He told Elias multiple times that he wanted to quit, but the man insisted, and now he was here, and he had killed a dragon per his own magic abilities. Forgive him for hoping, but he did. There was a chance he could blow up the bastards and avenge his brother. But only if he stayed.

“No. I think I’ll stay. You can help me find the circus.”

Their mouths literally dropped, “hah, just like a cartoon.”

“Tim,” Jon said, full of hope. “Thank you.”

“Don’t get me wrong, lizard. I’m not saying I forgive you.” He groaned. “But you said you knew about the circus. It’s been playing in my head over and over again. All the things I could’ve done that day but didn’t. Nothing would have worked anyway, there were so many of them and they were so much bigger. I would’ve died too.”

“Likely, yes,” Jon said. “The Strangers like an audience, so you were safer being that.”

Tim made a noncommittal sound.

“Hope you got a good meal out of it.”

Jon’s long face hung low. Kind of in kicking range. Very tempting. “Somewhat. You didn’t tell me about your experience. I just looked.”

“What?” Okay, Tim was confused now, and he didn’t think it was because of the gas. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I, eh. I eat statements.”

“Yeah, I know. Sasha told me. Munching on that trauma. But what do you mean, ‘I didn’t tell you’? Pretty sure you got a good look into my head. Thanks a lot for that, by the way.”

It was satisfying to see the dragon squirm.

“Yes… The written statements feed me, but they’re stale. It’s better- I, I mean it fills me more when the statement givers speak, or if I compel them to tell me their story. Yours was barely a statement, just fragments of a memory, a traumatic one at that. If I had asked, you would’ve given me the full story, and the aftereffects would’ve been much worse. I didn’t want that to happen, so as soon as I heard you speak, I closed my eyes.”

Jon hadn’t asked him anything. Just roared in what in hindsight must’ve been surprise as Tim pulled his coat off, freeing his wings. Only when he’d said Danny’s name did they close, because it would’ve resulted in something worse.

“Oh, wow. So, you’re just like a shitty therapist then?”

“I- No…” His boss looked unamused, for as much as a reptile could. “Yes. A shitty therapist.”

Tim grinned. God, he couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “You know, I’m sorry too. For pulling your coat off. Was pretty stupid.”

“Some might even call it workplace harassment,” Jon deadpanned it that perfect Boss voice he always put on.

“Just take the apology, you prick.”

At the end of the table, Sasha and Martin sighed with relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh my god freedomfightsback made fanart of dragon!jon ;_; he's so pretty give it a look [on tumblr](https://artandstarstuff.tumblr.com/post/621955837050699776/dragon-jon-for-applesaps-like-real-people-do-i)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy and Basira come to visit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so many thanks to gabby who had to sit through my breakdowns every one and a half hour OTL. ty for beta-reading. This had like 6 different endings at some point. I'm sorry if it looks like it has plot. It doesn't.

Jon sent his assistants home and told them to stay home until they’d recuperated. As he watched them walk out of the break room and out of the hallway, the knowledge that Elias called Daisy came to him.

Of course he did. Even after reconciling with Tim, his boss still needed the upper hand. Still needed the satisfaction of knowing how happy Jon would be if she visited, even if it was to investigate a ‘crime scene’ instead of hounding Tim back to the archive. If Jon didn’t like her so much, he would’ve been furious.

There were times when his paranoia had gotten the best of him, when he sent eyes to keep watch over the assistants who were too scared to return. Mistakes, just like when he called Daisy to herd them back to him, unable to leave his hoard, because he was stupid enough to think that a human would want to stay there and continue working for him. They only grew more fearful of him when he did that, and not once did Jon forget their faces of failed trust after Elias suggested he get Daisy’s help.

It hurt to have part of his hoard removed from him. Tim’s absence pulled at him like a compass to a magnet, but had Jon continued to follow his nastier instincts he might have lost Sasha and Martin too.

So he had not followed Elias’ advice, and let Tim be.

Daisy was dead silent when she wanted to be, but as she came storming through the hallways of his archive, it was impossible not to hear her coming.

Daisy was a massive creature, though relatively small for a dragon. Everyone was larger than Jon, but she had muscle to go with it. She nearly galloped as her thick forearms flung out from under her, dragging her body forward like a single-bull stampede. Tufts of hair stuck out from between pale iridescent scales like a mane across her muscled back. Wingless, but fast as the devil. Her thin scaled lips stretched wide in a joyous dragon grin, but to humans she must have looked monstrous and crazed with a snarl like that.

The growl in her voice greeted him before she could get the words out. Jon braced himself.

“Jon!” she rasped.

And she knocked the wind out of him on impact.

“Daisy!” he yelped as her chest slammed against his face, throwing him at the floor, her thick paws holding him down on his side. “For god’s sake!”

But she didn’t care. She leaned back to nuzzle his face, dumping her body on top of him and effectively knocking the air out of his lungs.

He lay on his side, not the most comfortable of positions, but unlike Jane Prentiss, Daisy was actually playful, and presenting a little submissiveness often kept Daisy from actively chasing him around the archives. She was massive and though his shelves were too Jon didn’t want to over-exert himself putting them right again, especially with his back killing him from the bite marks already, which wasn’t helped by the huge dragon weighing him down.

But he had a weak spot for her, and she needed the contact as much as he seemed to do.

Daisy growled low in her throat in a faux purr. Jon patted her thick neck with his paw and stroked through her mane. “Missed you too,” he said breathlessly.

She seemed to realize he needed air and shrugged herself off of him a bit, giving him a bit more wiggle room. She knew he would stay put for her.

“You smell, Jon,” she snarled before licking him over the face. Her tail whipped agitatedly over the ground like a lazy lion in the sun as Jon lay under her. She dug her nails into the floor next to him, worried over his scent. “Choke.”

‘Yes, Daisy. You’re not exactly helping with that,’ is what he wanted to say if he wanted to hurt her feelings. Instead he said, “It’s okay, Daisy. I’m here,” and allowed her to lick him clean of the choking magic Martin and Tim had cast. Thankfully it was just gas. If it had been dirt covering him, it would have left both of them much more uncomfortable.

Magic left residue, even when its physical manifestation was gone. Lesser dragons fed on it, and dragons like Jon and Daisy followed the trails leading towards bigger meals. Jon didn’t like choking magic, but it was available to him and accessible to his assistants. Daisy liked it even less, but thankfully loved to rid his hide of the smell. And god, it felt wonderful.

Sasha and Martin had helped tremendously with plucking out the damned slithery bastards from his body, but it wasn’t enough to take them out and wipe off his blood; Daisy’s soothing grooming put his worn flesh at ease, and with her rough tongue she removed dead scales and cleaned the filth from his wounds properly.

“New smells,” she noticed.

“My assistants,” he said, stretched out on the floor. “They helped to get the wyrms out of me earlier.”

Jon didn’t like to think of himself as touch starved, hardly liked to be touched at all, but between Georgie visiting and his assistants growing closer to him, getting pet became something he dearly craved. He liked having their smells on him, even if getting touched by them felt awkward. It marked their affiliation with the archive, and it showed they trusted him.

Daisy took in their scents to appreciate and map them, but licked over the spots anyway; Jane Prentiss’ corruption stuck to him much more persistently than the gentle scents of his archive, and getting rid of the rot and slime had priority.

“Hm. Good.”

“Yes, I suppose they’re settling in nicely…”

He let himself be manhandled so she could reach between his shoulder blades. It was all a bit intimate, so close to his wings, but he allowed her. She wouldn’t try anything.

“Hoard’s growing bigger,” she supplemented.

“Yes. Hopefully,” he said fondly, smiling a dragon smile.

It was a bit embarrassing to admit that yes, he had referred to Tim and Sasha and Martin as his hoard before. It never did well to get attached prematurely, Tim was a testament to that, but now that his triad was joined once again, he knew his archive would be stronger for it.

He rarely had a team that functioned well together. The one that came closest existed years ago, back when Eric still worked for the Institute and Helen hadn’t left to pursue her newfound interest in the housing market yet. Even then, Emma had been the outlier, the single human opposed to three dragons.

She had been a dragon trainer like Basira was – in their official job description at least. Every Hunt in section 31 knew better. You couldn’t tame a dragon, no matter their intelligence level (which was entirely based on human values), especially when the human understanding of them was limited and the dragons they worked with had no intention of showing their true intentions. You could pretend to control them, but in Emma’s case, a Twisting Deceit would only lead her on. Emma was predisposed to end up lost.

To humans, Hunt dragons only differed from others in that they made trophies of their prey. They didn’t breathe fire like Desolations, or lived in mazes like Spirals, so that was how they were distinguished. Employed because unlike dogs, dragons didn’t have to be trained to kill. They weren’t trained at all, not owned like the police thought they were. Did section 31 never wonder why it was so easy to get them to join their troops? That they came wandering into the precinct one day, adopted like lost puppies? Never to be disciplined or shocked or scolded to get done what the cops wanted to get done. It was all part of the play, like hunters and horses and foxes and dogs. Roles they fancy themselves having in the chase.

“Is Basira here?” he asked redundantly, just to keep himself occupied while Daisy worked him over. Of course Basira was here. Daisy couldn’t go out on her own.

Section 31 didn’t even know Basira wasn’t human, only that she knew her way around magic and the occasional dragon. Basira only stayed with the police to keep Daisy in check.

Jon still didn’t understand why they hadn’t left years ago after what happened with the coffin. Daisy had her own private hoard; a cabin up north housing all her old trophies that she could return to. They wouldn’t be able to find her if she decided to run away, nor would they stop Basira if she quit her job.

Perhaps it was because Daisy had been weakened, and the familiarity and commodity of the precinct’s herd kept her healthy. Mostly it was just none of Jon’s business, so he kept his eyes closed out of politeness for friends.

Daisy made a vague affirmative sound. She had her paw on his back, licking away the last of the residue.

“You hungry?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ask. I’m a bit peckish.”

She gave him a particularly rough lick over his eye and nibbled on a horn.

“Aahh!! That’s enough, Daisy! Thank you.” He wiggled under her, yanking his head away from her teeth, and she lifted her body off of him. He scrambled upright and stretched his spine, which wasn’t roaring with ache anymore. Much better.

She snorted at that. Ducking his head sheepishly, he agreed. He was always peckish. And especially now that he had to heal.

“Enough to eat,” she remarked. There were wyrms in all the corners of the hallway, gassed to death by Tim’s wrath. It wasn’t proper food exactly, but it filled his stomach as he started lapping them up with her.

Daisy had gained weight since the coffin, though not by much. Unlike Jon, she smelled delicious, which wasn’t a good sign. Delicious meant trepidation and chase. Her muscle strength came back, and her belly was rounded.

But she remained gentler, and before she wouldn’t have been caught eating dead food. Now, she headbutted him, a smaller dragon she used to bully, with affection as they ate the little wyrms together.

Basira showed up soon enough.

“Hi, Jon. Long time no see. I was just with- hey, guys! Come on. This is a crime scene,” Basira scolded as she saw them eating up the wyrms and wiping them off filing cabinets and shelves.

“A-ah, I’m sorry,” Jon said. Daisy wasn’t, and ultimately Jon really wasn’t either. He needed his archive cleaned up as soon as possible.

But he still had his manners and waddled over to greet her hand with a sniff.

He missed both of their smells. Though technically not employed by the Institute, he considered them members of his archive. They watched over him outside of it, bringing him information when a case needed the perspective of a sectioned officer and their Hunter.

Basira looked human, but that was just the result of having a dragon mother and human father. Her smell was a little odd, a mix of the two, with the weird smell of human clothing. He still welcomed it.

She sighed. “It’s fine. Just needed to take some pictures. How have you been doing?”

“See for yourself,” Jon said with scorn. “It’s a mess.”

“Obviously. How are you doing, personally?”

“I’m fine. Prentiss tried her hardest, but apart from a few scrapes, we all got out alive.”

“Good to hear. Elias said her body was burned?”

He nodded. “Tim – my assistant, he took care of it. It’s- she’s just ashes. Nothing left.”

“I see. No body, makes my job easier.”

No body meant no pictures and no pictures meant no evidence that Jane was a dragon, and that meant the knowledge that humans could transform into one remained a secret within the Institute.

Basira closed the Prentiss case off as a strange magical mishap where wyrms invaded a woman’s body and used her to wreak havoc on innocent people and their residences. Nothing new, and nothing out of the ordinary for dragons whose intentions humans could only guess at. Section 31 didn’t need mysteries solved. They just needed the problems gone.

“And she only spawned amphipteres?”

“Wyrms,” Jon corrected. “We’ve been calling them wyrms.”

“That’s cute, but you know I sort by heraldry.”

“And you know I don’t care for medieval classifications. What would you call Daisy? A drake?”

Jon stood next to her as she put on gloves to inspect a relatively intact wyrm, a big nasty thing with a slack jaw and a long pale body. She looked at it attentively, impervious to his question.

“Uhm, no. A Kirin, I think.”

“That’s ridiculous. She’s not even Asian. Nothing about that makes sense.”

“Okay, Jon. Whatever.”

“… Fine,” he relented. Different Beholdings, different filing systems. “But, to answer your question, no, these were the only type in her hive. She carried the eggs in her body but that got burned, so these should be all that’s left of her.”

Daisy could only eat so many little creatures before it became boring, so she sat down against the wall, covering an entire corner with her stallion-sized body, watching Basira inspect the scene.

Basira zipped up the wyrm and swabbed a sample of slime after taking pictures and notes.

She asked to see where they came from, and Jon showed them his office, wrecked like a hurricane had passed through it. The walls would have to be repaired, the shelves fixed, his books and files re-sorted and looked over for damage, even more so than the rest of his poor archive. The task already sat heavy on his mind. Daisy hardly fit into the room, and he dreaded it every time she put her feet on top of a fallen book or document.

“There’s tunnels all around and under the archive,” he said as they looked into the hole the wyrms had made. “But this is where they burst through first.”

She inspected it for a moment.

“Well,” Basira said, patting Daisy’s shoulder. “Let’s see what else is in there.”

“W-wait, hold on,” Jon said. “Are you-?”

“Yeah. If you can’t see into the tunnels we might as well check them out before this gets patched up.”

“Yes, I guess, but… Actually there’s a trapdoor and-“ he sighed. “Okay, but don’t go too far. There might be something that has claimed the tunnels as their hoard.”

“Just Prentiss’ reach then.”

He nodded.

“Wait, Basira,” Daisy growled. She placed her body in front of her partner. “I’ll go first.”

Daisy tore away tile and insulation like a pangolin versus dirt.

Jon watched with bated breath as the black, wyrm-stern hole expanded into a giant rift in the wall. The black void became ever so deep, a distance he couldn’t possibly parse no matter how wide his pupils dilated. His tail tucked between his legs and his wings wavered with unrest, but a part of him told him to jump, to see what else lay inside the vast expanse of tunnels.

“Come, Jon,” Daisy said when the hole was big enough for her whole body to duck into. Jon stood frozen in place. She flared her nostrils over his head. “Grab my tail?”

“I’m not a child, Daisy,” Jon huffed. She chuckled lowly at that.

“It’s alright. We can explore on our own,” Basira offered, practical as ever.

But that idea made him just as nervous. Waiting for them as he continued to stare at the big hole in the wall, darkness beyond what the light in the office cast. He thought of what else they might find there. More hatchlings, or worse creatures that made their home within the dark, hidden from the Institute’s eye. What if there was an entire nest there? Full of dragons who meant him harm, or wanted to chase him out of the tunnels because he entered their territory? What if Daisy and Basira never returned, absorbed by the very thing that made it dark and unknowable? And how would he know in the first place?

He was blind if he went in there, but at least he would know, and Jon always had to know. Especially when it presented itself so tantalizing in front of him.

They didn’t wait for his answer as they cramped themselves through the hole, Daisy first. The realisation he was being left behind spurred him into motion and he hopped in after them, his head against Basira’s trousers.

Basira held up her torch, the only beacon of light in the long meandering tunnels. Him and Daisy followed their noses, which clot with rot and dead wyrms.

The floor squelched for a good while as they made their way through. He’d have to clean his paws thoroughly when he got out of here.

“I can’t believe Tim got so many of them,” Jon said, impressed.

“Guy needs a raise,” Basira said.

“They all do.” He asked Elias before, but the man could not care less for work risk compensations.

Daisy was quick to find a scent, leading them swiftly through crossroads where Jon would have hesitated.

“What can you tell me, Daisy?” Basira said, just as blind as Jon.

“Old smells. Home. Lived here long enough. Restless.” Her voice was thick with growls, unaccustomed to speaking long sentences.

“Must’ve been hungry between attacks,” Basira said.

“She certainly had no reservations about her new diet,” Jon remarked. Jane had killed, and she had done it happily. Scared to death of what was becoming of her, but so caught up in the Corruption’s acceptance that she hungered to share her hive with her victims. Even though he hated her for what she did to his home, he could empathize with her hunger.

“She must’ve been living here all this time.”

“Making a new home,” Jon said.

“Hm-hm,” Basira nodded.

Daisy stopped abruptly, sniffed, and started digging at the wall in front of them. Jon noticed it too.

“Not just Jane,” he said, puzzled.

“What is it?” Basira asked.

“It’s another Corruption, but it smells different. It smells like –“

“Book,” Daisy supplemented, pulling the aforementioned object out of the crevice she made in the wall.

It was heavy, slimy, with moult between frayed pages and a spine that needed careful handling. As careful as she possibly could, Basira took it out between Daisy’s fangs, cradling it, and shone her light on the cover. “I think this is a Leitner.”

“A Leitner?”

Leitner – whose library of dark magic was so hated by dragons that six of them destroyed it in fear of what his collection explained. Secrets uncovered, the real reason why dragons went after humans, how to hurt them and control them. Magic that belonged intrinsically to dragons was made understood, for humans to use and abuse and control dragons with. They hated him as much as they hated Beholdings. Fear relied on the unknowing, and Leitner’s tomes meant threats to their existence.

Humans called it dark magic, near unattainable because most didn’t know where to look for it, some unaware it came from dragons at all. The power of reality-shifting beings held in the hands of ambitious humans.

“Could Prentiss have stolen it from the archives?” Basira suggested. 

“I don’t think so. Not from my collection at least. Maybe from artefact storage, but they never tell _me_ anything. We’d have to check the title.”

She held the torch between her teeth and wiped off much of the slime.

“It’s ‘Home of Rot’," she said, and huffed. “Could’ve guessed that.”

The book sat heavy in her arm, and she inspected its cover with a look Jon knew from his own curiosity. “I don’t want to open it here. Let’s go back. I think we got what we need anyway. I don’t think Prentiss went further than this, judging by the dwindling amount of amphipteres lying around.”

Daisy and Jon agreed, unable to pick up on any other smells for the moment.

“So, you said she got captured by the Corruption in her basement, escaped, and returned on her own at which point the dragon decided to infect her?”

“Yes. However disgusting her initial experience was, she saw what the Hive had to offer and got to researching herself. This was the book she used to complete it.”

“She wanted to belong that badly.”

Had Jane Prentiss not been taken in by the Hive, she would’ve made a decent Lonely.

The tome had indeed belonged to Leitner. Safe to open, though when they did so a cloud of stank welled up in their faces, itching their dragon and human noses. Much of the pages were eaten away, and Basira handled them gently.

“There used to be spells in here,” she said. “Different types of Corruptions. Mould, ants, religion, wasps. I’ve never seen so much information about dragons in one place.”

“Never seen a Leitner,” Daisy said.

Jon had. They had a bunch in artefact storage, completely off-limits to the people. He was pretty sure Sonja wasn’t even allowed to talk about them outside of work.

“Some of them are complete dragonologies,” he said, “and some teach humans how to use the magic of the dragons they describe.”

“Dangerous then.”

“Extremely.”

“Why did she destroy it? Why not keep it? I doubt she knew everything there was to know about Corruptions.”

“Because the knowledge made her twisted, and as soon as she was, she did not want to become unravelled by knowing more.” And she’d turned that fear on them, as angry as the dragons that destroyed Jurgen Leitner’s library. “It is partially why she attacked the archive, and because she regretted finding out transforming was possible at all."

It reminded himof a song. Of a human so in love with a swan they transformed into one, gaining a freedom unatainable without wings. But how could you understand such a thing so different from you? How could you live with the knowledge that you'd been something else, once upon a time. 

"For all her want of connection and togetherness and a true home, she was still alone, roaming the tunnels alone, attacking alone. She didn’t want to kill people, she just wanted to share her hive with them. If that resulted in death, well that was just fine, because it satisfied her hunger."

“Messed up,” Daisy said.

“Is it? I work best when I have my assistants, even if their research is done by getting into dangerous territory.” There was shame in admitting it. He put up boundaries, ordered them not to dig into Web statements, but he would’ve been just as happy if they disobeyed and came back with their supplemental material. How many had fallen victim to his leadership? Jane was much the same, loathe to admit it. “We get stronger by knowing.”

It was painful to think about, their existence in the world. Being not quite human or not quite dragon. If only he’d talked to her back when she first gave her statement. And if only she hadn’t made him so angry by desecrating everything he loved.

“It’s still messed up,” Basira said, her hand on top of the ruined tome. “It’s better not to know, sometimes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh my god freedomfightsback made fanart of dragon!jon ;_; he's so pretty give it a look [on tumblr](https://artandstarstuff.tumblr.com/post/621955837050699776/dragon-jon-for-applesaps-like-real-people-do-i)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things become a little bit more okay as the archival assistants and their boss destress. And we find out about Jon's sense of fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this one would only be like, 2000 words long. But then I remembered this is the first time they group sees each other after that whole thing with Prentiss, so now its long :^ )  
> tw for slight mentioned body horror at the end of the chapter and hinted-at descriptions.

On the return after their forced period of rest, nobody looked quite ready to go back to work.

Like a proper lazed-out pet, Jon slept on the worktable, lying underneath the lamp, accentuating the purple sheen over his rich brown scales. The wounds from the wyrm attack weren’t visible, not a trace of them left from the angle Martin could see. Then again, it was a little bit hard to make sense of all his back ridges and extruding scales and the lines they formed between them. Martin wouldn’t know if a scale grew in wrong. His belly looked smooth enough, though. Smooth enough to stroke…

He banished that thought from his head. Unprofessional. All the previous times he’d touched his sturdy dragon scales were justified when he thought about it, but made him flustered nonetheless.

Martin watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, his closed eyes in an expression of pure bliss, paws stretched in front of him, the slight twitch of his wings. As Martin came closer, he heard a soft purring snore with every exhale like a low rumble. Truly a dragon in its den, guarding his table.

It felt like a privilege to watch him in his true form. A dragon, secretive to most humans, notorious for the Desolations that wreaked their havoc whenever they could, elusive at best. But here Martin saw Jon sleeping, at ease in his hoard. Wasn’t that something special? Having his trust?

And then Jon breathed in deep and twitched awake, his eyes half-lidded and blinking slowly like a cat as he took Martin in.

“Hi, hey, ‘morning, Jon,” Martin stammered.

“Good morning, Martin.”

Jon stretched his broad wings like arms above his head, the monstrous eyes thankfully closed. The sight took Martin’s breath away as he revelled in their size and sheer pulchritude, like a gargoyle guarding its spot, but sleepy and adorable.

“How are you feeling?” Jon continued.

A few days off and a visit to the general practitioner had helped Martin get his heart rate back to normal and his body to recuperate. Thankfully, Jon had basically forced them to, because the morning after Prentiss’ attack his body ached like hell and refused to move, and he’d lain on his back for half of the day just groaning and reminiscing. As he looked in the mirror, he liked to think the leftover scabs were battle-scars, but really they didn’t flatter his body much. He felt guilt, mostly, whenever he looked at them, because Jon was the one who had taken the brunt of the attack, protecting Martin with his entire body like some sort of valiant knight.

“I’m feeling better, though I’m starting to suspect I missed some fine print on my contract. And you?”

Jon chuckled, such an odd sound to come from a throat like that, as it was when he spoke with the lack of movement of his lips. “I’m alright too. I heal quickly.”

“O-oh, that’s good. One up for magical creatures, hah.”

“You guys are all badasses to me,” Sasha said, coming in with Tim at her side, sporting bandages like Martin. She suffered the least injuries, avoiding most of the tornadoes of wyrms, but Jon had forced her to stay at home as well just to make sure. “I know the pain you feel inside. I know I do.”

Jon stood up from his resting place to address them properly. Martin couldn’t help but notice how he sniffed the air around them, as if he wanted to make sure they were still alright, just like he had when they bandaged up. Or perhaps it was how dragons greeted each other.

“Thank you everyone, for coming back. I know this wasn’t what you expected when you signed up for this job. I think now is as good a time as ever to tell you, but I can’t promise nothing like this will ever happen again. This is my archive, and other dragons respect this as my hoard, but when you go out there, there will always be a chance you might run into something like Jane Prentiss.”

“Well, yeah,” Sasha said, “just like we learned in kindergarten, watch out for evil wizards and witches.”

Martin nodded. He had learned the rhymes.

“Could’ve used a warning beforehand though,” Tim scoffed, and Jon ducked his head apologetically. “If this job’s so dangerous, why not hire people who are trained for that sort of stuff?”

Martin had known, as he sat at home pondering for a few hours too many, that there was no way things were entirely right between Tim and Jon yet. Tim returning to the archives was connected to an unspoken deal they made after helping each other out with Prentiss. He would continue to work for Jon as an assistant, as long as Jon provided him information on the dragons that took his brother, the Stranger. But Tim had just spent a month being bitter and scared of Jon. That wasn’t rectified by a few exchanged lines of banter, and Martin could easily pick up the scorn in the edge of Tim’s voice as he spoke.

As much as he wanted to take Jon’s side though, he was inclined to agree with Tim. If messed up witch/dragon ladies were a job standard in the archives, Martin wasn’t entirely sure why he was here.

He thought about that a lot during his down-time. Putting it in perspective, lying on his CV to get into a magical research institute and then being confronted by magical creatures; he was happy to be alive. He was happy he’d gotten out with a few scrapes and sore limbs.

“I’ve had assistants who were more guards than researchers, but they were often more interested in keeping me in check than actually doing their jobs. Elias should have screened you properly before hiring you, and I do believe you are all qualified enough to work here and very capable. Magical mishaps included.”

Martin tensed up. God, if he actually had a degree in parapsychology, would he have been more qualified to deal with- with things like wyrm attacks?! Was that why Mr. Bouchard hired him? Because something in his fake degree made him capable of fighting off magical creatures?

Then again, he had fought the wyrms off without one, hadn’t he? ‘You are all qualified to work here’ implied Martin as well. He had to take comfort in that Jon believed in him. He had done well all things considered. No reason to spill that particular can of beans.

But then Jon gave him a look. Nondescript, because he was a giant lizard with little human interpretable expressions, but one that bore so deeply into his soul that something within him welled up, making him want to tell the truth right then and there. His heart sank as he considered that Jon, fear dragon of knowing, had known all along. God, he was an _idiot_.

“Jon, you know, I-“ he started, searching for the words. “Actually, I want to tell you something, but can you promise me not to fire me? -”

“It’s alright, Martin,” Jon intercepted, and shared glances with Tim and Sasha. God, sharing that secret with them, two people with not just degrees but First-Class Honours when he hadn’t even finished high school, it was embarrassing. He often asked Sasha just to help him _sort_ things.

“I’ve known since I showed you my wings,” Jon continued, “and I don’t care. It’s not like I’ve exactly been trained in information management either. But,” he said, and Martin’s heart raced, “if you want to quit, I… I fully understand, although to be frank, I _really_ don’t want you to leave.”

Martin could cry. “I don’t want to quit either.”

He was in too deep already, and call it a crush, but having Jon outright say he thought Martin was not only capable, but qualified despite knowing Martin lied about his actual qualifications, it flattered him, and it made him want to try even harder.

“And you, Sasha?” Jon said, hopeful.

She shook her head. “Artefact storage is way worse. At least here we’ve got a guard dragon to protect us.”

Jon bristled at that but didn’t comment. _Flustered_ , Martin thought. It was hard to discern what exactly went through Jon’s mind, human or dragon, but he couldn't help but daydream.

“So, should we be worried about you peeking into our heads?” Tim added, arms crossed.

As if called out on it, Jon averted his gaze. “I, eh, I’m sorry. Sasha and Martin have requested that I spend my time around you looking more like myself so you can get used to me. But this does mean I might come to know things you would rather not.”

Tim scoffed, and sighed dejectedly. “Right, well. It’s not like I’m quitting anymore.”

Jon perked up at the reminder. “Right! Thank you! Really, Tim. Again, thank you. Actually, we might have something in artefact storage if you want to feel safer around me.”

Tim shrugged his shoulders, almost abashed. “Oh, alright?”

“Uhm, storage and safe?” Sasha winced. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“There’s not just dangerous stuff in there,” Jon said. “I’m not sure how much you’ve seen of the inventory, but there’s a couple of simple magic items there as well. Since some magic are anathema to each other, like Dark and Beholding, Artefact might have some harmless items for Tim to use against me.”

“God, that sounds a bit cruel, don’t you think?” Martin said, but Tim perked up visibly, grinning madly with the prospect of hurting his boss.

“Sounds good to me.”

“You don’t have to sound _so_ enthusiastic,” Jon said chagrined. “Let me get dressed, lest Sonja gets a heart attack.”

Instead of going into the direction Martin assumed was his dorm in the Institute, he went to his office. When he came back out again, it was in the same clothes he wore the day of the attack, with holes littering all across the fabric.

“Jon, your butt!” Sasha cried out after him as he left, at which he turned around to inspect the frayed edges of an albeit smaller hole on his right bum, exposing his blessedly intact underpants.

He frowned. “Huh, right,” he said, and sprinted off towards Artefact Storage. Sasha shook her head.

Without any orders given to continue their work, the assistants slumped into their chairs around the table, all looking a little worse for wear. Tim especially heaved a heavy sigh.

“You think we’re gonna go right back to work?” Martin said.

“Dunno, man,” Tim said. “Still feel like shite, but knowing our boss he probably wants us to haul boxes as soon as possible. He’s evil you know?”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “I don’t think he’s really all there either. The archive looks pretty patched up, considering the state we left it in. He’s been busy with it. I think he’s just as tired as we are.”

“I never say this,” Tim said, leaning back, “but we need a longer break.”

“I think we need to do something to destress,” Sasha retaliated. “All of us together.” When Tim gave her a look, she added, “including Jon.”

He came back rather hurriedly, holding three items in his hands.

It was then that Martin noticed how worn he looked; probably a manifestation of his dragon form, with an unshaven jaw, dark circles under his round eyes, and he had little red pockmarks that resembled Martin’s own on his hands and face, which crept down under his torn sweater, likely covering his entire body with how vehemently he had protected Martin and the archive. His wounds looked faded though, like scars, so they must have healed over already by his dragon magic. Jon slumped though, making his already small frame even smaller.

“So,” Jon began, “we’ve got this necklace, whose stone originated from the deepest pool of the darkest cave and has been kept in a locked box for three hundred years, then there’s this hand mirror that will turn my gaze right back at me if I start to pry, but I thought these sunglasses might be more your style.”

Tim picked up the items, considered them, and put the necklace and mirror back to slide the sunglasses over his hair.

“You’ve got to wear them over your eyes,” Jon said.

“All the time? That’s bad for my eyesight.”

“No, only when you see me as a dragon. I can’t use much of my powers as a human anyway, so you won’t have to worry about me knowing anything when I’m like this.”

“What can you use, then?” Sasha asked.

“Just basic senses,” Jon said. “The only thing I still have is the ability to detect magic, but even now it’s dulled. It’s partially why I started looking like a human; so assistants wouldn’t have to worry about me using my powers randomly. It’s not something I’ve got much control over. I will often know things in the same way you taste something when you eat, or see or smell. But if you protect your eyes with these, I can’t look accidently. Alternatively, you could tattoo your eyelids black and chant while doing so, but we don’t have any blood of a Darkness lying around for you to use.”

“Nasty,” Tim said, sliding the glasses over his eyes experimentally.

“You can keep them as long as you promise to stop plotting to burn down my archive,” Jon said pointedly.

“I’ll resist the temptation.”

It was when they sat sprawling on their chairs, looking at an equally exhausted Jon, that they all simultaneously decided that today was not going to be a productive day. In fact, as Sasha took in the wyrm-bitten trousers of their boss and his equally ruined sweater, Sasha asked him why he still hadn’t unpacked the clothes they ordered, to which Jon sheepishly replied that he kept forgetting he had them and that grabbing whatever clothes lay closest to him was more convenient.

Martin still didn’t fully understand how she managed it, but Sasha suggested they take a break from work, together. Like a team-building exercise, they could hang out at Jon’s place, watching him try out the clothes he and her had bought. Perhaps his obvious weak spot for Sasha was the reason he didn’t need much convincing, or maybe he craved more socializing than any of them thought despite Martin’s first week in the archives being shrouded in avoidance and mystery, but Jon accepted with a sigh and a defeated but not dejected ‘alright’. After some stuttering and denying from Martin and some thinly veiled looks of anxiety about entering a ‘dragon’s lair’ from Tim, the two of them begrudgingly accepted as well.

Weirder things had happened in the archives.

Jon’s home was a right mess, and it took everything within him not to start cleaning up alongside Jon as he cleared a path for them so they could at least sit on the couch without crumpling folders and documents and newspaper clippings. Long bookshelves sat against the bare walls, and like the ones in the archive, Martin could see claw marks in the wood from Jon’s climbing. Tim was right in that it looked like a lair. His whole cave-like studio was a chaotic whirlwind reminiscent of a less than properly organized archive. Oddly enough, he did have a kitchenette.

Ignoring Tim’s silent prayers of ‘what am I doing, why am I here, why did I say yes to this’, they took place on Jon’s couch. Its old leather creaked when they plopped down on it, as if its seats were only reserved for the multimaps and newspaper clippings. His home was furnished, but had additional filing cases, older than the ones they had in the archive, which made Martin wonder if Jon ever did anything else but work. He didn’t even have a TV, which wasn’t actually so strange because cable was expensive, but it worried Martin that even in the privacy of his home all he could see was an extension of their workplace.

But maybe that was just part of dragon culture, or whatever. Hoards, the single-mindedness of it. This was where he lived, and Martin of all people should know not to criticize other people’s homes, so he sat nervously on the couch, waiting for what was essentially a one-man fashion show.

“So, how’s this?”

It took his breath away when Jon came out, not in the stuffy old clothes he was used to him wearing, but new, tight fitting trousers and a blouse without wrinkles, pressed against his form. “Looks good,” he breathed, ignoring a snicker from Sasha. Tim, thankfully, was too busy wringing his own neck to give him grief, fingers on his new glasses as if he might lose them.

Jon went through brown and green sweaters over white blouses, black and blue turtlenecks and plaid blouses, neatly pressed dark trousers and jeans and two long flowy skirts of white and brown, all reviewed by Sasha who enthusiastically sent him back into his room to try out more or winced at an outfit she didn’t think fitted him, telling him which articles to match with what.

He seemed particularly happy with a neat, brown suit, worn with a white blouse and even a tie, which Martin felt was really business for business casual. It kind of clashed with his coat and seemed far too warm for this time of the year, but Jon stood so dapper with that slight smile on the corner of his lips, that Martin could do little else but watch him check himself out. It was the one outfit he seemed to truly have his own opinion of, looking almost proud of it.

Meanwhile, Tim stewed in something Martin couldn’t begin to dissect, like confusion and contempt mixed together. It gradually turned into giddiness the better he thought Jon looked when it became clear that Jon was not going to lock them up and bite their heads off after all, or something. Good, Martin thought. It was time he mellowed out a bit, though his commentary was getting rather teasy for Martin’s liking.

“And this one?” Jon came out of his bedroom wearing a loose Hawaiian shirt, dark, with delicate red and blue flowers strewn across his chest like a floral chain, tucked into the same dark trousers as earlier.

“Ooooh, I like it!” Sasha said enthusiastically. “Hold on, you’ve got to wear it like this.”

She skipped over and gave his shirt a little tug at the belt, loosening it up.

Tim whistled. “Evil dragon boss cleans up nicely, doesn’t he?”

“I look ridiculous,” Jon said, his arms spread wide, looking down on himself.

“You look good!” Sasha shot back. “You look modern!”

He did, Martin thought. He really did. After going through so many wardrobe changes, Jon’s hair, previously styled to sit back neatly, now hung around his forehead like handsome bedhead. He was dishevelled, his stubble still handsomely present, the shirt without an undershirt exposing the dark hairs on his bare chest. He shrugged, his arms wide saying ‘look at me’ as if Martin was to believe he really looked that bad. Because he didn’t. Martin watched him go from shy-ish retro bookworm to modern flirt, and it choked something up in him.

“Martin,” Tim said, eyeing him. “You’ve been awfully quiet. What do you think?”

“I-I, uh, looks good to me! Modern, yeah, much more casual. Un-unless you don’t like it? You can change, I mean, I-I don’t care, not my place to say. If it’s not your style, I get that.”

“Yes,” Jon said with disdain. “Not my style. I’d expect Tim to wear this.”

“Hey, it’s worked for me so far,” Tim replied with a sly grin and a wiggle of his eyebrows. “Maybe it’ll get you some dragon booty.”

Jon, grimacing, didn’t entertain that idea. “We don’t even wear clothes.”

“Even better! Saves you time.”

Martin didn’t like that overly insistent tone Tim used – as if he hadn’t been ready to kill him just a week ago. Besides, Jon didn’t look interested in dating at all, so what was Tim getting all friendly for? What, Tim came through with the compliments all the sudden? Get off of it.

“Come on, guys, he can wear what he wants,” Martin said, frankly a bit annoyed.

“Thank you, Martin,” Jon nodded appreciative.

“Too bad the coat kind of ruins it,” Tim said, almost offhandedly.

Jon frowned and ran his hand over the thick leather self-consciously. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

“Well,” Tim shifted in his seat, “its more metal than H&M. Looks a bit contradictory. And it’s old.”

“Of course it’s old,” Jon said. “I’m not going to skin myself every year for a new coat.”

They perked up.

“What did you say?” Sasha said.

Jon shifted awkwardly. “My coat? It’s my skin?”

The blood drained out of Martin’s face. “Like your…”

“Dragon hide, yes?”

For a moment, they were dead silent.

“No way,” Sasha breathed.

“Hah. Funny joke boss,” Tim said, looking unamused. “No, really. Funny joke.”

“I… didn’t tell you,” Jon said dumbly.

“Nuh, uh!” Sasha said.

“I suppose I thought it was rather obvious.” Jon sounded genuinely perturbed.

“You’re serious,” Martin said.

Jon simply stared and gave an apologetic shrug, as if casually mentioning that getting his skin torn off– God, Martin was glad he was already sat down. 

But Tim stood up abruptly. “Ha ha! Oh, so funny, boss! Tim’s afraid of skin-stealing dragons, so let’s just slip out that –“ He let out a frustrated groan and paced around the room, waving his hands frantically as if to shake off the feeling of Jon’s leather coat. “I touched that!” he cried out.

“Yes,” Jon said, crossing his arms chagrined. “Thank you for that, again.”

“No, no no no no no. Shut up. You said you didn’t- God, why? Just, this is exactly why I don’t-… I _knew_ there was something up with it.“

Jon stood awkwardly. “Listen, Tim. Like I said, I thought it was rather obvious, especially since you ‘figured out’ what my coat is for in the first place.”

“But you’re not a –“ Tim touched the sunglasses, placing them over his head, running his hand through the nape of his neck. “I thought you didn’t do that sort of thing.”

For the next five minutes Tim had to be consoled that no, Jon wasn’t secretly aligned with Stranger dragons and hadn’t lied about what type he actually was. It was disconcerting seeing him so upset over Jon still, though Martin couldn’t blame him entirely. If he picked up on the subtext correctly, something terribly nasty had happened to his brother involving skinning. Needless to say, it put a damper on their relaxing team-building fashion show, and only after Jon gave him a good glass of cold water did Martin feel his blood return to his face.

“Believe it or not, Tim,” Jon said patiently, even softly, “but it’s still Eye magic. Here, close your eyes and listen to my voice.”

Tim protested, but closed his eyes after more prompting, as did Martin and Sasha.

“Like I’ve said before,” Jon continued, “the coat has to cover my body. It’s… a reminder of what I am. I am a Beholding, I can’t change that, and I can’t cover that fact up entirely, so I have to take that part of me with me, no matter what I look like. This coat acts as a trigger for the transformation, but it also helps make sense of my human body. Can you hear it?

“You’re growling,” Sasha said surprised. Martin noticed it too. Not an actual growl of anger, but the purr in his throat when he spoke as a dragon, low and soothing.

“It draws the eyes and obscures the cracks in the facade,” Jon said.

This made Martin frown, and he opened his eyes, finding Jon’s eyes closed as well.

He couldn’t shake the unwanted images from his mind, of skin peeling and Jon screaming with that roar that sent his skin shivering. The lengths Jon went through to be liked by humans, just so they wouldn’t be scared of him and what he could do.

“You went through that for us.” Surprisingly, it was Tim who said it before Martin could. Tim plopped down onto the couch as if defeated, arms crossed over his knees, like it was a spoken thought which significance became real only after the words escaped him.

“I did it for all possible assistants,” Jon replied.

Tim sighed and rubbed his forehead with a grimace. “Cool, now I feel even more like a dick.”

“No, I should’ve just told you.”

“Oh, yes, definitely.” Tim nodded fervently. “Freak me out from day one.”

Well, that kind of did happen already. And the next month had been them waiting for the time bomb to go off.

“Did it hurt?” Martin asked tentatively.

Jon gave him a look that said that was rather obvious, but something softened in his expression. “Yes. Tremendously.”

“I can’t believe it all healed.”

Jon nodded and rolled up his sleeves, exposing his wyrm-bitten arms, the scabs which had grown over rather nicely already and faded into red scars. “I heal quicker than humans. It took power to strip me of enough skin without outright killing me. I’m not proud to say that, considering what I have to do to feed, but… it’s proven helpful over the years.”

Jon explained it to them, how once he had another Beholding assistant, Eric Delano, whose wife was involved in dark arcane magic, a witch, and hungry for the information and experimenting her husband supplemented. At the mention of Leitners, they all bristled, having read their fair share of statements involving the often tragic endings caused by the books. It was Mary Keay who had figured out a way to make Beholdings human by applying Eye magic to Stranger techniques, even rearing a half-dragon son with him, though he couldn’t enjoy much of their child before Mary decided she had enough of Eric and murdered him.

It was a gruesome story, one Martin wasn’t too keen on hearing, but once Jon got into a storytelling mood it was hard for him to stop, the words flowing from his lips like a parent reading a Grimm’s fairy tale to their child before bed, caught in the story.

Martin gnawed his lips all the while, though Jon blessedly didn’t go into detail of his own body horror. He remembered Jon telling him that if he wanted to know something about him, Martin should just ask. It made sense now why Jon never spoke about his past on his own unless prompted, because Jon, unpredictable as he was, no doubt lived a life filled with monstrous occurrences.

When Jon was done, he sucked in a big breath, almost relieved.

Sasha spoke first, lifting the tension from the air with her chipper voice, although it did sound a tad forced.

“Now that a mystery we didn’t know was a mystery got solved, don’t you guys feel like we’ve grown closer as people?”

Martin had a feeling that this wasn’t the last they would hear of Jon’s misadventures, but even Tim couldn’t deny that Jon looked rather good underneath his own skinned leather.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jon's Kate Bush Fantasy outfit: [K-Kate... 😳](https://twitter.com/slinger_apen/status/1280595409442869249)  
> I will not apologize for that final sentence.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about song, dance, and interests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the kate bush chapter. everything is magical.
> 
> ... Tim's pov awoke something in me. Not sure where it will lead. I'm very curious to hear your opinion of it.

The archives were quiet most of the time, unless you called the steady clicks of typing and the rustle and movement of papers and files and boxes noise, which Martin didn’t. It was calming and gave his head some rest while he tried to figure out under what category he should file some ancient tome or the other. They’d tried radio some time ago, but they all agreed it was hard to concentrate on old English texts while radio DJs chattered away between pop music. Not to mention, Jon had come out of his office, agitated, on more than one occasion to tell them off.

So it was pretty surprising when Martin heard music play one morning.

“Oh, you’ve got the radio on?” he said. It was some broadcast playing older tunes from the eighties. He liked it. It was sort of retro and nice on the ears.

“We’re testing something,” Sasha replied, a mischievous glint in her eye.

“What? By playing Kate Bush?”

She nodded and leaned in conspiratorially.

“Ok, so: I first noticed it when Jon and I went shopping for clothes. You know that brown suit he liked so much? Turns out it really resembles the one Kate Bush wore in a photoshoot. Then some days later he randomly sent me a picture of her in a bat costume, no explanation, and asked me to print it for him.”

Tim leaned in. “I think he’s got a fetish.”

“And _I_ think he just really likes her.”

“Yeah, all dressed up in his dragon fantasy. Creeps me out. You think he beats it to the wings or her crawling over the floor?”

“Tim, that’s nasty,” Martin said.

“Tim don’t be gross. Anyway, we’re playing her music to see if he’ll say anything about it.”

“Why not just ask him if he likes her?” Martin said.

She shrugged. “I saw him dancing. I don’t think we’ll get to see that again if he knows we’re watching.”

…Okay, that sounded extremely cute.

“It humanizes him or whatever,” Tim said. “Sasha said I need to start seeing him as a person. Don’t know what she’s on about.”

\--

If there was anything that humanized Jon for Martin, it was the brief and shy chats with him as Martin handed off one report or the other. He dawdled a bit too much, this time experimentally on purpose, but Jon didn’t seem to mind anymore, not like he used to at the start of his employment when he’d sent him off and tell him to not waste his time.

He noticed the two patched-up holes in the wall. One Tim’s, the other from the wyrms which seemed bigger than he remembered it being, so he asked Jon if there had been any more trouble with more wyrms bursting through or something.

“Ah, no. They’re all dead. A friend came over to investigate. Couldn’t fit through, otherwise.” He shook his head. “Stupid, there’s a trapdoor to the tunnels in artefact. Although… No, too small too.”

“Did a bang-up job, then.”

“Hah, yes,” he said, the slightest smile on the corner of his lips.

Okay, this topic gave him nothing to work with.

“Hey, Jon. You like Kate Bush?”

Martin could practically feel Sasha and Tim’s schemes shattering in the background.

The fog over Jon’s eyes lifted. “Oh! Uhm, yes, I do quite like her. You can leave her playing, if that’s what you’re asking. Honestly, I’ve been enjoying the break in silence. Normally I’d tell you guys to turn it off and focus on your jobs, but it’s nice, listening to her voice when I’m working.”

It was easy to drift into a steady rhythm when she played, especially with the volume turned down a little so all Martin heard was gentle vocals and soothing music. “She’s pretty charming, isn’t she?”

Jon’s eyes almost lit up. “Yes, she is.”

“Didn’t know you listened to radio, honestly.” Jon never mentioned having any hobbies or interests apart from his work, so hearing him appreciate music with such joy sparked something happy within Martin as well.

“Oh, I don’t. I first came to hear of her through a statement. A handful of people listening to a copy of ‘Hounds of Love’ and ending up getting entrapped by the Lonely, lost in the hills and woods and such, or ostracized by their community, and don’t get me started on the intense yearning instilled by ‘Watching You Without Me’ without there actually being anyone there to reciprocate those feelings. Incredibly depressing album.”

An entire album messed up by magic. The Lonely was a mysterious dragon type so unheard of, humans didn’t even know of their existence. Martin had read a few statements and reports of humans wandering into mists to never be seen again, and none of them had ever mentioned a dragon. The more benign version of Lonely magic in the archives included records of sorcerers learning how to become invisible and making people forget about things, friends, family, places, memories. It sounded like the worst kind of magic of all.

Like most items in artefact they used to be ordinary, now infused with magic by either a dragon or human. Jon explained briefly how dragon magic was always used to hurt others, which meant a lot of items in storage were dangerous. If the album made the listener scared, or wander off with the intention of isolating them, it must’ve been in possession by a Lonely for it to become warped.

“Of course, the original songs are much more lovely, more about hoping and wishing and loving and dreaming, though that’s still entirely based on the listener’s interpretation I suppose. Anyway, regardless of its twisted lyrics, her vocals struck me. I started listening to her normal cd’s and I sort of…” He gave Martin a shy side-eye. “It was pure beauty.”

Martin tried to remember what she looked like.

“Mum always said she’s creepy.”

That actually made Jon bark out a laugh, a single loud resound of joy. “Would be a good explanation why a _dragon_ would love her human music so much.”

“You don’t like other music?”

“Not really. A couple. But nothing compares quite to her performances. I appreciate her theatricality and she’s a good dancer.”

“It’s, uh, interpretive dance, right?” Martin tried to remember the music videos he used to glimpse on MTV, of wild arms and lifts and shadowy movements. He never saw the point of theatre much, finding it either excessively extravagant or utterly boring. It surprised him that Jon was interested in such a thing for how rigid he always was.

Jon nodded. “It comes quite close to dragon dances.” He glanced at Martin, then averted his eyes as if something bitter came over him. “But I’ve heard it looks weird to humans, plus there’s the Strangers who try to get humans to participate which, as you might have heard from Tim, never ends well.”

Tim hadn’t told him, but Martin thought he mentioned it in his first freak-out, the day Jon told them about himself. Dancing till your feet bled. Macabre. 

“Do you dance?” he said, disregarding the mention of the Strangers. Just because they were gruesome didn’t mean Beholdings danced with monstrous intent.

“Sometimes,” Jon said. “Though it’s more fun with a partner. I haven’t properly danced since me and Georgie were still together.”

Martin couldn’t suppress a pang of jealousy, hoped it wouldn’t show on his face. “O-oh, is it like a… Uhm, a, uh…” He pressed his fingers together, stupidly.

“Mating dance?” Jon said, amused, and Martin felt a blush creep up on his neck. “Could be, but not necessarily, and, uh, for me especially not the, uhm, physical definition of uh… It’s got different uses, enjoyment, intimidation, companionship, uhm. Say, Martin, shouldn’t you go back to work?”

Martin tried to will the blush from his face, a thick frown over his eyes. “Yes. Right. Sorry.”

\--

“It’s not nice to trick him,” Martin said, back to business behind his laptop, typing away. “You could have just asked him about it.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” Tim said. “Plus, I still haven’t seen him dance.”

“It was barely a shuffle, though,” Sasha said. “Not even a bum wag.”

Martin tried to put that mental image out of his head, preferring to focus on his work.

“Maybe he just needs a little incentive. What do you say, Sash? Choreograph this shit?”

Martin glanced over at them as their chairs groaned while they stood up. “How did that go again,” Sasha said.

Tim came to stand with her, and she placed her hand on his neck as the music played. They hadn’t had a statement come in for a while, which meant Jon wouldn’t be recording, so they felt a bit cheekier being rambunctious with the volume turned up and echoing through the room. As the drums hit, they started dancing, moving as if Sasha controlled Tim’s undulating body. It looked ridiculous, and despite knowing that Jon was kinder, a bit more tolerant of Martin, he was sure that if it had been him fooling around Jon would’ve come out right away to tell him to stop and get to work.

Part of him realized that this was a way for Tim to cope. With all that had happened, relieving stress by messing around with Sasha returned their dynamic back to normalcy, like in that first brief week of getting to know each other where they worked happily enough alongside Jon, oblivious to what he was. Still, a small part of him wished they had their own offices, or at least separate cubicles.

The novelty of re-enacting weird Kate Bush dances wore off soon enough and the music was turned down to its quieter, more bearable state. They settled back into the routine of their work.

A few moments later, they heard a soft singing voice.

“You, it’s you and me.”

The assistants stilled, craning their heads to watch the door to Jon’s office creak open as he shouldered through. Martin strained his ears, Jon humming quietly over the music while carrying a filing box towards the archive.

“Running up that road. Running up that hill,” he sang, soft and melodious as he disappeared into the long path between the shelves, the long strides in his step not unnoticed by Martin.

He shared a glance with Tim and Sasha, both appreciating their boss’ surprising vocal talents until a loud bang snapped their heads towards the rows, accompanied by a loud “FUCK!”, then followed up by a quieter, more collected, “can someone help me lift this book, please?”

* * *

Jon lurked. He did that right from the start. It unnerved Tim, those deep-set eyes, his small frame stacked against the wall or behind a shelf as if Tim didn’t notice him stalking. Like he wanted to ask Tim a question but couldn’t through some invisible barrier of shitty social skills, so he instead stood there, watching.

He was less oblivious about it now, surrounded by Institute goers near the entrance of the courtyard, more blended in. Jon side-eyed him, his hand over his mouth to take out the cigarette he was smoking. Tim had always found it odd that Jon smoked. He wasn’t known for his human quirks, and the idea that Jon had to relieve stress or could get addicted to something as mundane as nicotine always made him feel queasy, as if the dragon he actually was underneath that human layer was putting up a show. Then again, dragons and fire was one the biggest stereotype there was and Jon had already admitted to being a hoarder. Not of gold, but, eh. What’s the difference.

He blew out smoke, turning his face to Tim now. People passed by, not giving him any mind, and it seemed as if he was debating himself if pulling Tim out of his own friend group was worth it, considering how much he seemed to love avoiding humans. He was acting just a tad too creepy to watch, so Tim excused himself to his friends and closed the distance between him and Jon.

“Boss,” he said, with a subtle nod.

Jon looked slightly panicked like he hadn’t expected him to make the first move. “Hi… Tim,” he said, and took another drag.

“Something you need?” Tim said, coming to stand next to him. Jon rarely stuck around to hang with his assistants in the break, so it was a little unnerving to have his boss hover around him like he wanted to interrupt that blessed moment of peace in his workday.

“Oh, eh, no, nothing really, I was just-“

“Then why are you lurking?”

Jon frowned, straightening up a little. “I wasn’t _lurking_.”

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Nothing, I was just-“ He scratched over his ear. “I was wondering, you haven’t really been informing yourself on the uh-“

“The _thing_. No.” It was Tim’s turn to shift awkwardly. In all honesty, he didn’t know what he wanted of Jon yet. He wanted things to go back to normal, to joke around with Sasha now that he had less of a reason to be afraid of some dragon bursting through the wall to gobble him up. But the only reason why he agreed to stay with the Institute was because Jon was going to help him beat the Strangers who took his brother, and that particular topic wore him out just by thinking about it. He just came back from half a month of anxiety and debating himself on whether or not he should burn the archives to the ground. Forgive him, Jon, for trying to settle back in first. “You might not believe this with that murder-lizard brain of yours, but I’m not ready to go all Kill Bill twenty-four seven.”

Jon flustered agitatedly. “That’s _not_ what I meant.”

Tim shrugged, letting himself fall onto the bench next to them. It was a nice day out, and as Tim glanced up, found they sat right in the sunlight. Good thing he had free sunglasses now.

“Fine,” Tim said, taking the glasses off his head and running a hand through his hair to sweep it back. “Maybe I got one thing.”

“And what’s that?” Jon said, aggravated, but obviously curious.

“What’s the opposite of the Stranger?”

Jon quirked his eyebrow. “Rather obvious. The _known_.”

“Huh. Right,” Tim said. “So that’d be you.”

Jon stilled, as if the question just sank in. “Yes,” he said.

He looked at the empty spot next to Tim, a silent question in his gesture. It was still weird, being in such close proximity to him, a guy who could shed his coat and bite right into his neck if he wanted to, ripping him to shreds. He scooted over so Jon could sit.

“Strangers, or the ‘I Do Not Know You’ as they sometimes like to be called, they need an audience. But the audience can only watch, not know or understand what it is they’re seeing. They thrive on the fear of confusion, and Beholdings cut right through that.” Jon chuckled quietly, as if remembering a private joke. “They really hate that.”

“So you can help me?” Tim said, maybe a tad too hopeful. But it was perfect. It must’ve been fate that it had to be his boss, his boss who was a dragon – a concept already so far-fetched he could scarcely believe it – who happened to be the exact species that opposed the ones that killed Danny. One who was on his side.

“I thought we already agreed on that,” Jon said.

“No, I mean – you could come with me.” Once Tim finally became fluent enough in using fire magic so he could destroy the bastards. Jon could _know_ them or whatever while Tim got busy burning their twisted plastic and wooden bodies into oblivion.

But to his annoyance, Jon just let out a perplexed, “what!?” at which Tim flinched back. "I-I mean, no. Tim, I’m sorry, but I can’t come with you.”

Tim scoffed. “Why not?”

“Because I’m-!” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his mouth. “I can’t leave the Institute.”

“Can’t or won’t,” Tim said, sceptical.

Jon gave him a long foggy look.

“It’s not safe,” he settled for. “You’re free to go. I can’t do much to stop you, though I really urge you to consider not doing anything rash. But I won’t come with you if I can help it.”

Tim cursed, bounced back in his seat, and was silent.

Jon continued, “It’s not just them out there, Tim. It’s me, as well.”

Tim didn't need to ask him what he meant by that, what Jon did 'out there'. Something dark settled in the back of Tim's mind, reminding him of many staring eyes, of eating and being fed upon. Jon’s deep-set eyes watched Tim’s reaction, waiting for Tim to acknowledge the horrors he'd commited or something, like Tim was even in the mood to delve deeper into whatever it was Jon was fishing for. His face was serious and gaunt. Jon looked like he didn’t eat much; Sasha had said as much.

Tim nodded, “I get it.”

They sat quietly, Tim pondering and Jon smoking away until his cigarette ran out and he tossed the butt into a nearby trashcan. Tim could leave the bench if he wanted to, but he still had time before his break ended, and the sun shone nicely over this part of the courtyard, so he let his face heat up, leaning back. Jon seemed to have the same idea and he closed his eyes as he basked in the summer heat. Reptile.

“You like music?” Tim said after a moment of blessed silence.

“Hm? A bit. I just had a whole conversation with Martin about Kate Bush, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You listen to anything else?”

“Not really. Not actively.”

“You got any hobbies?”

“Hobbies…” Jon looked genuinely discombobulated by that question.

Maybe he should phrase it differently. “You done anything recently that wasn’t work?”

More bewilderment for a disconcertingly long time. “I did a little thing in a band some while ago.”

“What!?”

Jon looked up, flustered. “Oh, uhm, a friend of mine has a band. Had a band. He asked me to do some vocals.” He lifted his head in thought. “Some six years ago?”

“What the hell, boss. Show me.”

Jon waved it off. “Later. I had a small part.”

“Alright, I’ll keep you to that.” Sasha would storm Jon for it anyways, and he could never say no to her. “Vocals. Huh.” Jon did have a rather nice singing voice. ‘Six years ago’ wasn’t exactly recent, though.

A cloud tried to break up the sunlight, failed. He saw a group of students hover near the window higher up in the circle of the Institute, lost in the summer haze, trying to catch as much light as they could before the rest of the rainy year resumed its schedule of cold and damp. A Kate Bush song had been looping in Tim’s head for the better part of the day and played persistently every time his brain went just a little bit quiet.

“You actually like getting pet?” Tim said after some daydreaming.

“What?”

“It’s just, Sasha’s always going on about you, and I’ve seen the way you and Martin huddled together. Couldn’t get his grubby hands off of you.”

“We were under attack by flesh-eating wyrms," Jon said pointedly.

“Sure,” Tim said with a smirk. It was funny to see him get so riled up. Sasha was right, loathe to admit. It did make him look a bit more human. “So, do you?”

Jon took a long drag of his newly-lit cigarette and exhaled it with an equally long, heavy sigh, staring out in front of him. It screamed guilt and embarrassment.

Tim didn’t wait for an answer, reaching out and quickly ruffling his hair.

“Hey!” Jon complained, warding Tim off with his arms.

Tim laughed as he pulled his hand back. Jon had a blush creeping up his dark cheeks, and his hair was tousled, looking like a crazy professor he had in Uni once. Jon furiously ran a hand over his hair to try and get it back to its neat state, flattened it as much as his wavy locks allowed, tucked behind his ears.

“Wow, they get to pet you and I don’t? I’m hurt. Was it something I said?”

“Oh, there’s plenty you said,” Jon grumbled, trying to instate his composed demeanour. He brushed off fallen ash from his coat, cig between his fingers as he patted himself down. Despite his best efforts, a few strands of wild hairs curled up from his widow’s peak.

Tim watched him, the sun still beaming hot over their heads. Tim wore little more than a shirt, but Jon had to wear that stuffy-looking coat which he must be boiling in. He looked rather pitiful, hunched up in it, eyeing Tim with contempt.

Then Jon sagged his shoulders and looked downwards.

“They trust me,” he said. “This shouldn’t be that strange to hear, but it makes me feel like they belong. Not just with me, but in my archive.”

“Gross. Get your smelly dragon stink all over them?”

Jon scowled. “Stop it.” Then his expression softened, more insistent. “It’s the other way around. _It_ starts to smell like _them_.”

Something fluttered in Tim's gut as he processed that. Jon allowed them to touch him because he trusted them. Jon lived there, in the Institute. Even slept in the archives, Sasha told him once. All their smells mingling around in there, comforting to Jon as they played their part in his archive, as if he gathered assistants alongside statements.

“Part of your hoard,” Tim said, and the way Jon looked at him coiled that something deeper in his gut. Pleading, guilty.

“I don’t know if you picked up on it, but I was reluctant to let you go. I sensed you would the first time you were angry at me, and I thought if I tried to herd you back I’d lose you forever.”

So his boss was just as possessive as Tim initially guessed. Jon had looked like he wanted to chase him down, desperate for Tim to listen to what he had to say, but at that point Tim was far too confused by having a boss reveal to him he was a goddamn magical creature. To his credit, Jon hadn't followed him out the door to force him to listen, though Tim felt like that didn’t exactly deserve brownie points. It was just basic human decency, which… he guessed Jon had shown by not treating him like cattle.

“Probably would’ve,” Tim said, leaning back into the seat. Jon nodded, acceptant of the harsh truth. “But I’m here now, so.”

He eyed Jon for a reaction, who turned to him with a puzzled expression.

Ah, what the hell, they all got to have their go.

Tentatively, Tim reached out again, gentler this time as not to spook him. Jon flinched, wondering what Tim’s hand was doing hovering over his head.

“Relax,” Tim said, and placed his hand, sturdy and heavy, on top of Jon’s head. Jon scrunched up his shoulders when Tim's weight settled. Like he’d gotten a cold shower. Like a wild animal unaccustomed to touch. Like a man being pet by his colleague. 

He didn’t know if it was the same for Jon when he was a human instead of a dragon, if his scent or whatever would stick to him at all, but he petted him nonetheless, stroking his hair back, softly this time.

Realizing Tim’s intention wasn’t to mess his hair up again, Jon let his shoulders fall and bowed his head as he leaned into the touch, like it was something bestowed upon him. Not like a cat overly affectionate, but enough that Tim knew his petting was reciprocated, wanted. He let Tim run his hands through his surprisingly soft curls, almost to the nape of his neck, his thumb brushing stray strands falling away.

“I’m not human, Tim. I’m sorry, I really am.”

“Don’t know what you want me to say to that, mate,” he replied. “I guess you’re different, and I guess I’ll just have to deal with that.”

He wasn’t human, no, and randomly petting a guy in a park was awkward at best, but at that moment Tim didn’t care. It was what Jon, silently, said he needed. Not comfort, but acceptance, like how Tim needed comfort and had to accept what Jon was. And if this was a way for Jon, or at least his species, to build trust, then Tim wasn’t really in a position to let it pass by, was he? And he still had dragons to hunt down, still needed the archives for it, was still part of it if he liked it or not.

All of that was irrelevant. Jon had excellent conditioner.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about... Pets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter I needed after the last one. Will update this sunday with a bigger, less fluffy one.

Down in the basement of the Institute, Jon trotted happily through the archive. The long drape of his skirt was wrapped around his back so it wouldn’t dirty on the floor, and his sweater sat comfortably around his wings, tucking them closely to his body. It made for easy transformation whenever he wished it. Half of the days spent as a human, the other a dragon, the watchful and curious eyes of his assistants on him whenever he was the latter. It prickled his skin, to be known as he was again when it used to be normal all those years ago. He had almost forgotten what it was like, walking among human legs without them darting away from him whenever he came too close, watching them not from a lurking spot as he hunted for statements but as a co-worker they could trust as they peacefully worked together.

Well, two of them kept their cool at least. Tim still jolted whenever Jon skid past his legs. He tried to steer clear of Tim’s path for most part, but sometimes the man just got in the way and shooting under his foot was much faster than waiting for him to finally get on with it. Sasha’s laugh was loudest depending on how shrill Tim’s yelp was.

And he liked to greet them when they came into work in the morning. Sniffing them was a different kind of knowing, a quick ‘hello, what have you been up to?’ without it being too intrusive (he hoped). It gave him answers to simple questions of what they had for breakfast, how many pets they had and how affectionate they had been that morning (in Sasha’s case: two and usually: a lot), and how they were doing health wise without it delving into an entire conversation that dwindled their productivity.

So, when Martin put out his hand, Jon trotted over to see what he had for him. Nothing, just a hint of sweat and the underlying scent of old paper and tea.

He turned his head away to get on with his work, but before he could, Martin’s hand cupped him, stroking the side of his face.

“Gah! Martin!” Jon pulled his head away in shock.

Martin startled, yanking his hand away as if burned. “Sorry! I thought I could pet you!”

In the background, Tim let out a bulky laugh.

“Pet me?!” Jon said incredulous.

Good lord, he liked to be pet, yes. A hidden part of him could admit that. But Martin couldn’t just reach for him and rub his face like he was man’s best friend.

“You were coming over!” Martin deflected. “I thought you wanted like, I don’t know, head scratches.”

“Head scratches,” Jon deadpanned.

Martin looked utterly panicked. “You don’t like those?”

If Jon were human at the moment, he would be blushing furiously. Thankfully, his assistants had a hard time reading his stone-cold dragon face.

He didn’t need to be scratched or petted. Simply close contact was enough to settle the hoarding instinct in the back of his mind – the one that told him to categorize his assistants as his, as possessive as that may sound. Jon was touch averse, which made for a pretty weird combination as he was also touch starved. Brushing against his assistant’s legs whenever he walked past them was the closest way he could control who touched him and where.

“Maybe ask me first, next time.”

“Right. Sorry,” Martin said, unsure of what to do with himself. He gave Jon an uncertain glance, and Jon could almost feel the question coming up. “ _Can_ I pet you?”

“Oh, there we go,” Tim said, typing away at his laptop. Jon and Martin gave him a look and Tim turned around cockishly. “Oh, I’m sorry. Is the mood not tender enough for you two?”

They all ought to have separate offices, Jon thought grimly.

There was a difference, he knew, between having Tim's hand on him while he was a human versus Martin's when he was a dragon. He still held the smell of Tim between his horns from when he had brushed through his hair, the heaviness of his hand and the brush of it imprinted within it. It had made him stop in his tracks; Tim trying to indulge in Jon’s needs, as awkward as it was. It showed effort on his part that Jon had not expected from him, but Jon treasured it, secretly. It was a stark contrast to the jitters Tim got whenever Jon’s scales accidently found their way against his trousers.

Cuddles were far too familiar, but it felt good to have his archive, any part of his archive, cling to him like a comforting coat.

That was why he gave Martin the quiet ‘go ahead’ to rub the scales on his cheek, and as Martin’s hands cupped his face, he soaked in the smell of tea and old paper.

Things were good, better than he ever thought his archive could be. He could hardly remember the last time he had a trio of assistants who worked with him as well as they did. Tim still flinched whenever he came too close, yes. And whenever he stared at Sasha or Martin too long, he could feel the anticipation building up in their skin. But that’s why he let them get used to him as a dragon, so that over time they wouldn’t look twice whenever he stood on his hind legs, shelving a box or the other, drawing himself up to his full height, all jagged edges and postured wings.

“It’d be way more awkward if you were a human,” Martin said, rolling his thumbs over his jaws, making him want to yawn. Martin had a curious look in his eyes, working Jon over as if it was his duty to steamroll the comfort into him.

Jon was silent. If Jon were human, Martin’s hands would feel softer, gentler as they brushed over his skin. 

“Hey, Jon,” Martin said after a bit of mindless scratching, his fingernails running over the scutes around his horns. “Do you purr?”

“Only felids and genets purr, Martin. I am a roaring creature, and roaring and purring are mutually exclusive because of the difference in ossification in the hyoid bone of the larynx, which in my case is incomplete to allow for a deeper vocalization with a minimum of air intake. If I could purr, I’d have blasted my vocal cords a long time ago. Funnily enough, I can speak with human speech because-“

Jon was rambling. He could tell by the way Martin’s eyes glazed over that he’d gotten very little of that.

“No,” he cut himself off. “I don’t purr.”

“Alright. Okay,” Martin said sceptical, brandishing a mischievous look. “Are you sure, though? Because you make this sound when you sleep that sounds suspiciously like purring.”

That’s what he got for sleeping in the archives. He tried to think of what Martin meant. Perhaps it sounded a bit like purring whenever he breathed out too heavily.

“Hmm. Like this?” He sighed, air traveling harshly through his throat, and out came a low rumble of satisfaction, a growl vibrating in his chest, and Martin yanked his hands away.

Tim slammed his hand on the table from shock. “Christ! Can you guys stop fucking around?!”

Jon felt guilty, if only for a little bit. They had to get back to work anyway.

\--

**Message history with Jonathan S.**

_Sasha  
18:15_  
Hey Jon  
I need to bring The Juggernaut to the vet this thursday at 12  
Would it be ok to bring him?  
I know animals aren’t allowed in the archives, but it’ll be even more of a hassle trying to find a temporary place he can stay at just so I can pick him up 3 hrs later  
Besides  
You love kitties right?

 _Jon  
_ _19:54_  
I do like kitties, yes

\--

Jon had almost forgotten about the special visitor that Thursday, but when Sasha came in early carrying a cat kennel his eyes shot right up from his documents, his nose in the air sniffing out that tell-tale sign of cat.

Jon leered in the door opening, not knowing how the Juggernaut would react to him, watching Sasha until he drilled a hole into her back. She shivered and turned around as she put the cage on the table, gave him a smile when she noticed it was just her creepy boss, and invited him over to come check out her cat.

It was a slender little brown thing, tucked away in the back of the kennel. Young and – from what Jon could smell – perfectly healthy, though he certainly wasn’t a good replacement for a vet. He liked cats. No reason. Maybe because the longer they stared at him the more love they seemed to exude, their eyes unwavering and blinking lazily as Jon too was wont to do, unlike other animals who took his fixed gaze as intimidation and freaked out on him.

Maybe he just liked them because they were so darned cuddly.

“Hi there, Juggernaut. How have you been doing?” Jon asked, peering at his big yellow eyes.

“Just going in for check-ups,” Sasha replied. “Are cats okay with you? I don’t want to leave him in his kennel for too long so I was wondering if he could stay in your office. He’s a runner.” She grinned sheepishly.

Jon was more than okay with that. It had been a long while since he had a pet, the eye-spawn of various Beholdings from when he was younger not withstanding, and his frequent chats with the Admiral left him longing to adopt one from the shelter if the archives hadn’t been an incredibly bad place to keep one. Cats seemed to be neutral towards him, balking at him like they would at any larger creature, or accepting of him when he presented himself as non-threatening.

“That’s fine,” he replied.

For as far fears went, animals were rather unimpressed by Jon most of the time. It was true that predators didn’t like to be pointed out when they sneaked around with prey, and that prey animals didn’t want their hiding place to be uncovered by his eyes, but that was about it. He wasn’t a hunter. He didn’t stalk them, finding whatever spot they had hid themselves in and relishing in knowing where they were, his terror. It wasn’t the sort of fear he was interested in pursuing, and it was far too simple for any dragon to properly feed themselves on. Humans would be hard-pressed finding any records of Beholdings attacking sheep pastures, though he had heard of one Beholding who had put memories of prey animals into the mind of a fox that killed them, driving it mad. But Jon didn’t care much for that kind of cruelty either.

Animals did get aggravated whenever they saw his teeth and size sometimes though, but a good hiss or bellow usually scared them off easily enough.

Sasha’s cat had no such fighting instincts.

When she brought Juggernaut to Jon’s office, he stepped carefully out of his crate, unafraid of Jon’s bigger, slitted, staring eyes. Jon kept his distance though, and as Juggernaut stood on top of his desk with his little paws, he tentatively reached out his snout to greet the little guy.

“I just want to point out that this is so cute,” Sasha said.

The Juggernaut thought Jon smelt funny, never having smelt anything other than the occasional Terminus pests he and his brother chased out of Sasha’s apartment. He licked Jon once between his nostrils to try him out. His tongue felt rough and barely tangible on Jon’s scales. ‘Way too strange,’ was Juggernaut’s opinion of it.

Jon couldn’t help but smile, his sharp teeth poking out of his open mouth. Juggernaut startled backwards, his ears flat to his neck. ‘What the heck!’

“Maybe you’ll like me better when I don’t look as scary, hm?” Jon reached for his coat and wrapped it around his shoulders, his scaly arms transforming into slender human arms that could slide into the sleeves, his wings disappearing into his back, his long unfriendly looking dragon face transforming into a long smiling human one. Juggernaut, quite perplexed by all this weird display of magic, jumped off the desk and looked around the office for a way out.

Sasha too eyed Jon with wonder and he realized that his assistants had never actually seen him transform before.

“That was amazing,” she said.

He bristled, readjusting his collar and his crumpled clothes underneath it, not knowing how to reply to that. “Thanks. I’ll be here all day.”

He wasn’t sure if she didn’t get the joke or simply didn’t find it funny.

“Let’s try that again,” she said, reaching down to Juggernaut. “And be polite this time.”

She held him in her arms and presented his little brown-striped face to Jon who held out a finger so the cat could sniff it again.

‘Hm. Same as before? You can pet.’

He gave Juggernaut a scratch over his head when he accepted, his hairs soft as Jon brushed over them with his fingers.

“Can I hold him?” Jon said, offering up his hands to Sasha.

“Yeah, here you go. I’ve got to make some coffee and get busy anyway.” She placed the cat in Jon’s arms, and left.

Juggernaut was only a little bit uncomfortable being handled by a strange man but settled on his chest soon enough as Jon puffed out in his office chair. He gladly accepted the scratches over his head and the rubbing over his shoulders, purring deeply.

“We’re not going to get any work done this morning, are we sir?” Jon said, his hands enclosed around the little guy’s head. Juggernaut agreed by licking the palm of his hand, wondering why Jon had stopped petting him.

Eventually he did go back to work, straightening himself so Juggernaut would jump off his lap to inspect the room he was locked in. He zoomed around his office for a few minutes, his tail raised in excitement, and he pawed at the fixed walls. ‘Death and corruption past this point!’ he noticed, to which Jon replied, “I know, Juggernaut. We couldn’t be bothered to clean up all those wyrms.”

He could understand animals a little. He liked to tease Georgie with it, though she knew Jon couldn’t actually hear the Admiral say human words. He just understood the basics of what he meant. Most dragons were like that, animal as much as they were human. Able to comprehend them if only to torment them.

Theoretically he could try to implant human knowledge into a normal cat’s minds so it would understand Jon on the same level as humans, but that just left the animal messed up. Not necessarily mad, just far too intelligent, maybe omnipotent, magical, and far too capricious, warping them into something dark and unlike their nature. Animals could become manifestations of dragons, like the eyes in his wings, or the wyrms that had lived in Jane Prentiss’ body, part of their hoard as well as his power.

Jon wasn’t interested in that, though the idea of sending out a horde of Watcher cats into the streets sounded incredibly enticing…

He was right. He couldn’t concentrate at all with Juggernaut lying on the floor, languid and smiling before his desk. Jon put his work away and took off his coat, unbuttoning the blouse from his scaly body and stepping out of his skirt. He greeted Juggernaut by lying on the floor, making himself as small as he possibly could in front of him, even rolled over so he would show his belly. He couldn’t let his assistants see him like this, he would never live it down, but for Juggernaut it was worth it.

‘You again!’ Juggernaut’s head rose, eyeing him with slight panic for a moment before he realized Jon wasn’t going to put his teeth around his head. ‘Don’t try anything…’

He watched Jon as he came closer to give him a light sniff in greeting and a lick over his cheek, sampling his scent, and Juggernaut purred in acceptance then. Jon sprawled across his office floor and watched Juggernaut stand up, stretch, and sidle up against his cheek, and purr and rub his face against Jon’s horns. Juggernaut’s tail whipped agitatedly because he was still pretty confused! Jon was very big, smelled incredibly weird, but gave really good scratches.

At some later point – Jon honestly didn’t bother keeping track of the time – Tim came in his office to drop something off, and almost yelled at him for making him stumble over him. “Sash get your cat before our boss eats him,” he said before closing the office door behind him.

Jon didn’t like to refer to himself as an animal, partially because it was wrong and also because it diminished everything he was. Correct terminology was hard to agree on. Mythical creature probably came closest, right next to monster. He was a thinking creature, capable of unspeakable horrors.

As Jon lay against Juggernaut though, his little cat hairs tickling against the brim of his eye as he rested his head against Jon’s, he felt like a soft animal, worthy of the title.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sasha's cats are the Juggernaut and Professor Cats (aka the Professor)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about Elias, Jon, and hunger.

Elias’ eye itched. A poignant blight in the strands of nerves inside his skull, persisting, spreading, annoying.

The skin pulled as he rubbed circles around his eyelids, too dry against his nail, making his sight go foggy and the pain worsen.

Feeding from Jon would alleviate the pain and sort his eyes out, as was usually the case. Perhaps some eyedrops in the meantime while he waited for his appointment with the man.

His eyes were old, after all. Served him well over the years but they were ultimately not compliant with the body he had stolen. It was not the first time they ached, but he had a stronger will than the original inhabitant and was always able to force that sensation of wrongness down. He had already uncoiled the twisted creature all those centuries ago, the replacement of its eyes constituting the final chapter of that particular adventure.

He'd gotten what he wanted. Immortality, blessedly so, his Institute and archivist, power… to a certain degree. Power in the sense of influence, money. The power to pull secrets out of people. The sort of power humans dreamed of. But Jonah, Elias, had not considered himself human for a very long time. Even before taking over this dragon body he had already been a wizard for many years, and he was once again more than bitter about the fact that this was all he would have.

Elias couldn’t outright ask Jon to pull out his eyes and allow them to be replaced by Elias’. Even he could not twist truths to trick Jon into doing something like that. Thinking that thought once had been a mistake. A brief stammering of heartbeats between the two of them as they stared each other down, easily remedied by an ‘oh, I’m just kidding, Jon. Simply an intrusive thought, don’t think anything of it,’ from Elias, both knowing damn well what he had done to the original Elias Bouchard. The fact that it was half true made it easier to keep Jon away from further distrustful thoughts. And what was a little paranoia if not a good motivator to get lost in work?

His eyes itched, but he had his Institute. His beautiful Institute.

“You haven’t been growing, Jon. Do you get enough sunlight?” he had once said years ago.

It was a harmless taunt not meant to be taken as anything other than a light jab at Jon’s pathetic growth rate. Dragons grew from sunlight and fear, and especially of the former Jon hadn’t gotten much over the past couple of years, always surrounded by humans by day, though statements left much to be desired as well. Jon didn’t take the bait, simply remained silent as he waited for Elias to collect the day’s research from his eyes.

“Good to see them again, wasn’t it?” he had said when officer Basira and hunter Daisy visited to check up on Jon and take stock of the destruction Jane Prentiss’ had left in her wake.

This time, Jon couldn’t deny the pleasure he’d had seeing them again, his meagre hoard, or archive of dragons, having just a little bit more of that _esprit de corps_ he craved, the branches of its hierarchy spreading out, stronger.

“They could live here permanently,” Elias had offered, but Jon had laughed at the idea of Daisy becoming a guard dragon for the archives. Elias had laughed at the mental image too, a pleasant joke they could both share for once.

The deep need that settled in Jon’s mind at the thought of having them close by did not go unnoticed by Elias. Jon was a terrible liar.

“Isn’t it better with Tim back in the archives?” Elias had said, and this time he thought he had really broken the man. Jon sat quiet, big reptile eyes averted in shame and guilt in a way that made Elias’ eyes shine with interest. “Back together like a good hoard.”

All thanks to Jane Prentiss and a camaraderie built by mutual hatred of harmful creatures, though one more interested in the harm brought upon his precious archives than his own body. Not entirely Elias’ intention, but the invitation he had sent out to meet Tim about his supposed resignation came at just the opportune time. Elias cared for Jon, he truly did. A happy archivist meant enthusiastic reports, which meant a satisfied Elias, which meant his Institute ran smoothly. He kept Jon contained within his archive, never needing for anything more.

“You aren’t thinking of joining Tim, are you?”

Jon had a run in with the Stranger already. Captured for the skin still attached to his body which he would undoubtedly have lost weren’t it for the dragon that called itself the Distortion, who had performed a service so out of tune with its own personality by saving Jon that it changed its shape entirely. They had become friends somewhat, and then it left Jon alone again. Nobody would come to rescue either Tim or Jon if they decided to go into the Stranger’s circus alone.

Elias needed Jon to be afraid of himself, afraid of his assistants and what they might do to him, how they might react and what they thought of him, if not instilling the safety his archive brought. Elias had hoped that fury still burned within Tim, but unfortunately his focus on finding his brother got in the way of distrust. Well, if Jon’s assistants weren’t keeping him afraid, they could keep him comfortable.

“You’re very lucky he came back at all. I suggest you don’t lose him this time.”

What Jon did to himself was not normal, and what he allowed Elias to say to him was not normal either. But year by year, conversation by conversation, Jon had gotten accustomed to it.

Firstly, working for the Institute at all, guarding the secrets of dragons after Jonah had already gotten what he wanted from them. The potential of all of it leaking to the outside world, revealing just exactly what they were, that dragons fed on fear at all and didn’t simply cause wanton destruction because they were animals. It was a worry Jon had wrestled with especially at the start of their agreement. Now, hiding the truth from humans was a second nature.

Elias’ hoard had not become a source of information, rather the befuddlement of it. On occasion it produced research so dark and powerful, Elias couldn’t help but snatch it right back up, safely tucking it away beside the Leitners in artefact storage. His Institute could research magic all they want. Dragons would remain a mystery to humankind.

One of Jon’s many faults was his curiosity and love for humans. When Jon met Eric Delano and subsequently his wife Mary Keay, Jon shut off a part of himself, denying himself the ever Knowing of Beholdings by covering it up by a human disguise, something Elias had always thought was abhorrent as a man who craved nothing but the power of dragons.

Faced with the outside world not as a creature of terror but an equal, Jon gladly donned the shroud that made his wicked eyes harmless. Jon wanted to relate to humans. He wanted them to be unafraid of him when fear was his entire existence.

It was ridiculous, but Elias allowed it, watching Jon coil himself tighter around his archive because that was all he had. After all, Elias had no actual need for Jon to go outside. Jon had his assistants for that, gathering their research and supplemental material for him. Besides, Jon had a tendency to get kidnapped by either hunters or other dragons playing their games. A dead archivist was of no use to Elias, so once again he spoke to Jon.

“You could’ve gotten yourself killed. And who would be there to protect the archive, hm? What must your assistants think of you, running out like that, meddling with the other monsters. Don’t you think you’re saddling them with enough worries already?”

It humanized Jon too much, unfortunately, that coat he wore so readily. It brought him too much sympathy, too much compassion for the humans whose fear he had always wanted to behold, but it was leverage Elias could use to keep him bound to his Institute. Jon agreed with him. Staying inside protected him from the world outside, and the world outside from him.

Jon came to Elias on his own volition, asking him for a ward that kept him from going out. Elias did it gladly. Whatever his archivist needed to keep him curled up under the Institute, docile, gathering knowledge for Elias until Jon could no more and Elias knew everything. He wondered if Jon for all his knowledge and omnipotence realized that there was no physical warden around the walls of his Institute, just the ones Elias spoke into his mind, curling like a claw, one Jon could break easily if only Elias hadn’t polluted his mind.

There was so much Jon rejected about himself. It disgusted Elias, but it felt good to have Jon so confused about his own place in the world, to allow him to grow into something so twisted in a single body where dragon and human intermingled until Jon no longer understood where one ended and the other began. To have him buried in his archive like there was no other place for him to be. To have him be ashamed of what he wanted, the fear of humans, as well as their love.

Elias let it play out. He spoke it into existence and let Jon interpret the rest. It gave him a deep satisfaction within his draconic core.

But the part of him that used to be a wizard, the part of him that had once held so much power already – it screamed at him that this was not why he had taken Elias Bouchard’s body. He had not gained the power of _watching and knowing_ , only _speaking,_ only _lying_ , only _suggesting_ , and he would always need Jon to feed him the _watching_ and _knowing_.

And Elias’ eyes _itched_.

* * *

Down in the archives, Jon heard Martin knock on his office door and invited him in.

“Hey Jon. Got some more files on the Desolation case.”

“Thank you, Martin. You can put them with the rest.” Jon gestured vaguely to a pile of half a dozen filing boxes, all filled to the brim with statements.

Martin nodded. “Should be the last of it, I think.”

Desolations were the source of many dragon stories. Fierce, terrifying, bold, and visible. The least shy of all dragons, brazen in their destruction because it was so easy for them to do so, burning down whole villages before hunters or suppression squads could stop them.

There had been a terrible fire a month ago, and naturally with the destruction of the village so were there victims. Handfuls of people who had lost everything they had, desperate to share their stories – if not to each other then to a magic researching Institute that might be able to do something about the beasts.

The statements had come pouring in a couple of weeks later. Research was finally done with them, handing them off to the archive along with their notes.

To Jon, it was a banquet, but even a banquet got stale if you ate enough of it, especially when all the food served had been sitting in the open for a month. He saved the majority of them for days when the hunger gripped at him, clawing from the inside out. The horde of people giving their statements had only made him more acutely aware of how much there was to be fed on, and when Martin had mentioned how full the waiting room was Jon snapped at him none too gently.

But that was then, and this was now, so he thanked Martin for his help hauling the boxes.

“Also, uhm,” Martin hovered near his desk after planting the box next to the others. “We were wondering if you wanna go out for lunch with us.”

“Oh,” Jon said surprised. “Thank you, but uhm, I’ll pass.”

“Oh, okay.”

Martin sighed quietly, as if he’d expected it but was still disappointed. Jon hadn’t said no to be harsh, he just couldn’t.

“Maybe another time?” Martin tried.

Jon didn’t know how to tell Martin without longing lacing his tone that he wouldn’t mind joining them. It wasn’t that he wasn’t hungry – although Jon didn’t eat human food typically, and with his diet he was always hungry. Spending time with his assistants was also no longer the teeth-pulling affair he used to think of it. “No, Martin. I don’t really go out.”

“Of the Institute?”

Jon nodded.

“Oh!” Strangely enough this seemed to perk Martin up a bit. “Because you’ve got to protect your hoard, right?”

Jon couldn’t help but cringe at that – such an oversimplification of his situation – and Martin zipped his lips, probably thinking he’d ran his mouth.

“Sort of,” Jon answered. “Not quite, but yes. I can’t leave, shouldn’t really.”

“Oh, Jon. I’m sorry.” Martin always looked genuine in his apologies. “But you don’t have to stay in the archives, do you? ‘Cos you take smoke breaks? We could go to the cafeteria instead.”

Jon’s mouth gaped as he could not explain the mental block that came up after that compromise. He assumed Martin would have just let it go.

“I don’t have any money,” he blurted out.

Martin’s mouth curled up with humour, giving him a disbelieving look. “Really? That’s not what Sasha told me. Mister Stereotype,” he added with a funny tone.

“Oh, come on, it’s not like I actively wrangle money out of people’s hands.” Jon awkwardly played with a marker between his fingers. He did feel bad about acquiring all that money without doing anything with it. He didn’t even know why he lied, like a part of him was afraid that having lunch with his assistants would become a repeated occurrence.

Martin chuckled, though Jon didn’t think he had said anything funny. “No, I guess not. Desolations though. I think the cult is busy trying to get people to donate to some fund that doesn’t exist? I thought I read it in the statements. You know, half of them aren’t even about the homes they burned down, just the money the victims lost.”

The Cult of the Lightless Flame worshipped Desolations. In return, the humans were accepted into the dragon hoard. A cult of dragons, they called it, where the humans found sacrifices and appeased their masters by bringing them wealth, hoping the dragons bestowed their powerful dragon magic upon them. Fools. Wealth did not matter to dragons, and whatever increase in power would only fuel their master’s fire, not their own. The Desolations just liked to see humans desperate, taking away everything they had while sitting on piles of money they had no intention of doing anything with except burn, then delight in watching humans realise that.

“It’s often the same kind of loss. It’s losing stability, of a home, family, friends, money, until nothing is left. Money is everything to humans, and you’re easy targets for Desolations,” Jon said.

Martin nodded, wordless. A vacant look overtook his eyes, and with a pang Jon was embarrassingly reminded of the fact that Martin had his fair share of trouble with money too. He hoped he hadn’t offended him.

Not knowing how to deal with having said such a thing, Jon quickly changed the subject. “But, uhm, yes. Back on topic. I would like to have lunch with you guys. If it’s in the cafeteria. Though I’ll say I’m not too big a fan of human food.”

This seemed to cheer Martin up. “I’ll tell the others,” he said, and took off with a small smile.

It was later (after an awkward lunch of staring at his sandwich for what must’ve been twenty minutes before he could manage a bite, while Tim bugged him about some thing or the other) that Jon caught Martin with that same vacant look on his face.

He must have struck a nerve with the man if it persisted this far into the day. Jon was willing to admit he could be a bit tactless when it came to human needs. He understood the value of money, knew that it was the only reason Martin had applied to work at the Magnus Institute, but it was still something he didn’t think much of since it had little use to him, and he felt stupid for blurting out his thoughts so flippantly.

Jon came up to Martin, his head low. As he came up to his workspace, he reclined on his haunches so he’d be more eye level with Martin, his long skirt wrapped around himself so it wouldn’t get dirty on the floor.

“Martin,” he said tentatively, a question heavy on his tongue that he couldn’t say without inadvertently pulling Martin’s thoughts from his mouth. “You seem down. Can I ask what’s wrong?”

Martin blinked at him, eyebrows raised. “Oh, nothing much. I was just thinking.”

“Some heavy thinking,” Jon said, hoping it didn’t come out sarcastic. He could be unintentionally dry sometimes.

Martin glanced at his wings, his eyes half lidded, almost saddened.

Jon held his wings tucked inside his rumpled sleeveless sweater, the two wrists reaching out above his head. He didn’t like to stretch them too much around his assistants, anxious of the way his eyes sometimes twitched open without his say-so. Tim, for all his banter, still tensed up whenever Jon caught him off guard.

“I was wondering,” Martin said, “if you don’t go out of the Institute, do you still fly?”

Jon quirked his head, not expecting him to ask that.

Taken aback, Jon said, “No, I haven’t flown in a long time.”

“Oh… That’s too bad, isn’t it?” Martin’s eyes were sympathetic.

Jon used to be an avid flyer. It wasn’t the flying itself, the rush and exercise, but seeing everything from above as far as his wings spread, his eyes watching down upon the humans while the wind soared him across entire continents. He used to see everything. Not just fears, but simply human beings living, working, entertaining each other. When he was younger that was how he saw the world. Not up close, but as a watcher from above, silent, not understanding, without judgement. It was curiosity that brought him down to earth, to understand what it was about humans that he liked so much.

In his archive, he stretched his wings every evening, doing his rounds, gliding down from shelves in a mockery of flight. He wondered if he had lost much strength in them, that if he climbed up a tower and let himself fall, he could bring himself upwards with the same powerful strokes he had always had, climbing up to the clouds as high as he’d flown before.

“Yes,” Jon breathed, his wings closed tightly and stuffed under his human clothing, aching to stretch. “It’s too bad.”

\--

In his dreams, Jon still flew. His dark wings spread, larger than he could ever be in waking hours, blotting out the sky with his hundred eyes. He watched from above as his statement givers, locked in their nightmares, watched their terrible scenes night after night. Sometimes, on singular occasions, Jon visited them on foot, walking among the victims as if he were one of them.

The only fears that truly fed Jon nowadays with a taste that satisfied him were the ones from his dreams. Flashes of hunters who had once captured him stricken by dark water, empty stairs of forever coiling madness, high windows with bottomless seas urging its victim forwards. Sometimes there was someone new, a refreshing scene to gaze upon and to repeat, and sometimes people disappeared as Jon outlived them, as he would all of them eventually.

In his waking hours, he saw wizards and witches and researchers and students roaming the Institute with so much fear to give. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he found himself roaming too, consciously or unconsciously looking for a crack in the ward, a hole he could crawl through so he could search for the stories he desperately needed to hear, not just read. But Elias was thorough, and true to his word did not allow him to pass, no matter how much Jon scratched at the door in the haze of his hunger. If it was persistent enough, he would roam along the windows of the Institute for hours in the night until Elias’ magic fogged his sense of direction and he ended up right where he belonged. His ward was the shape of a claw, curling inwards. Back to your position, Archivist.

Sometimes he did find a wayward student or wizard half-asleep in the corner of the library, and he would take their statement if they had one, finally sated. He was too old to feel truly guilty about singular incidents within the safety of the Institute, too accustomed to the monster he was, though he always told himself he would try to be more considerate next time he found someone. A part of him ashamed for his lack of guilt, though mostly he just cursed Elias and the librarian for leaving humans behind after locking up.

This night, he found himself once again standing before the front doors of the Institute, staring outside the window.

He wasn’t too hungry. For all their blandness he did get a full meal out of the Desolation statements, but there was always that lingering sense that there was much more to be found.

Humans still walked the streets in the dead of night, sometimes. His eyes were big as he followed them from behind the glass, watching them pop up from corners and disappear behind the next. Had he been free, he would’ve trailed behind them, stalking them until they took notice of him and he could ask his questions.

The streets were empty now, and he watched just to pass the time.

It stormed outside. Not too surprising – it had been hot for several days now and the friction of lightning had hung heavily in the air today. He listened to the clatter of rain on stone and the delayed thunder accompanying the lightning strikes. He thought about flying too much after his conversation with Martin, but he was happy he was inside now. Flying while it rained wore him down.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the sky, a crack casting the world in a purple glow and splitting the heavens in two. Odd, that it kept its position in the air when the sky turned dark again.

Jon watched as that figure hovered in the sky for far too long as the rain slowly started to dissipate along with the thunder. It was a long thing with limbs like branches that seemed to want to take up the entire sky. It coiled its body ever so slightly, flying winglessly with the smallest movements. Jon watched that crackle slowly approaching, elongating, like it simply became big before his eyes instead of coming his way. As it did, it turned from lightning white to a fleshy pink, its head sprouting horns like frills; like the long thick roots tangled under a tree, the rest of its body a jagged snake.

Jon startled backwards as the creature suddenly appeared, floating right in front of the window.

And then Jon was flying. Not flung backwards, flapping his wings in the hallway of the Institute in retaliation, but hovering in a dark, silent space where neither gravity nor his wings seemed to work, his feet grasping for leverage.

The sensation was strange, like he was diving nose-down, straining to right himself horizontal. He roared in shock for a moment before the reality of the situation caught up to him.

A dragon hung before him, not massive as he’d been just a moment ago, but small, barely longer than Jon himself was, and thin like the original lightning strike in the sky. He looked at Jon with interest, his pupils rounded and friendly. However, that friendliness soon disappeared as Jon opened all of his eyes and stared the dragon down.

“ **Why are you here?** ” Jon rumbled, static filling the empty air.

“Came to give you a statement,” the dragon answered, unamused under Jon’s intense gaze. “Though I don’t know if I want to, now that you’re acting so rude.”

As Jon’s eyes peered into the other dragon’s, he knew why he had come. Michael Crew, a Twisting Deceit who had turned himself into a dragon of the Vast, came to the Institute to give its archivist a statement about his becoming. Simple as that. He just wanted to air his heart and let his story out.

He came to voluntarily give a statement to a hungry dragon who had been living of off scraps for most of the year and then some. Not that Michael Crew knew this, but Jon flustered as he realized there was little to get hostile over when the guy came to him in earnest and was willing to give him a meal.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Jon closed his eyes immediately as he realised this, as it was indeed incredibly impolite to stare down other dragons as a Beholding, whose gaze incited more conflict than they intended, even if few of them could truly control themselves from doing so. Though, if Jon was being honest, it was also incredibly impolite to teleport another dragon into the territory of a Falling Titan.

“Yeah, sorry when you get some food out of it,” Mike said dryly. Jon couldn’t refute that, so he simply averted his eyes as much as he could.

Jon rarely had visitors like Mike, dragons who wanted to give their statements, but it happened. Sometimes they only spoke of themselves, narcissistically wanting to record all the horrible things they’d done to humans. Other times they were the victims, caught up in the schemes of another dragon’s fear domain. This time, though, Jon had a feeling it wasn’t quite either of those things.

“You would be willing to…” Jon searched for the words. “I can use my power on you, to feed.”

“It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

“No.” It was only extremely intrusive to most creatures. Dragons were lucky in that they were exempt from Jon’s nightmares.

“Then it’s fine. I just want to get it out. No one from my family or any of my friends really understands, but I figured you might.”

Jon had heard many people’s stories over the two centuries he’d been alive, and there were few that truly enraged or confused him. Jon was a Ceaseless Watcher, unable to intervene or pass judgement, most of the time. Whatever morals and biases lay buried in the statements, he accepted them as they were.

“We could do this back in my archives,” Jon said.

“Nah. While you do your thing, I’ll do mine.”

A good compromise.

“Alright,” Jon said. He slowly opened his eyes again so that Mike would know what was coming. The pinpricks of red in his numerous pupils rose to the surface, drinking up every word the dragon of the Vast would speak. “Statement of Michael Crew, regarding his transformation.”

And as they both fell into the deep blue, Jon’s head spinning from vertigo and hunger, Mike told his story.

“It all started when I was born. I know, that sounds kind of stereotypical, but it’s true. The whole crux of dragon existence is that we’re born from a fear so great that it can’t be contained in just the minds of humans. We sit in our eggs, waiting for the next big thing to push us through that hard shell of sleeping nothingness until our parents finally find an excuse to crack us open.

“I hatched on a pretty successful day, I think. There are loads of people scared of lightning so I guess that’s why my parents decided to drop me in the middle of a storm. They drew it out for days, warping the sense of reality of the humans who looked up at the sky, making them wonder how it could be that it rained so much without the rivers flowing over, that there was so much friction in the air to keep up the lightning, how it was that the sun never seemed to rise to clear out the dark stormy clouds. At some point, the fear reached its peak and baby Mike was finally brave enough to poke his head out of his shell. The shot of lightning that cracked my egg halfway down helped loads too, I’m sure.

“The lightning hurt. I don’t remember much else, because I was just a hatchling, except what’s important. I hurtled through the sky, paralysed. I fell for what seemed like so long that the shock of that initial lightning shock wore off. And as I fell, as my body tried to come back to its sense, all I could do was appreciate the velocity at which I was falling and the distance between me and the ground. I always remembered that moment every time I flew.

“I was actually born a Spiral, or Fractal or Twisted Deceit, whatever. Fractal probably fits me most since that lightning strike basically turned me into a three-dimensional Lichtenberg Figure. I tried to live like that, I really did. I did my fair share of lying. I’ve coiled like a scar in the sky and made humans believe they controlled the weather. Sometimes I followed people, stretched the night and roared like thunder so their brains fizzled wondering how much time had really passed, but I’ve always felt limited by it, like I was just trying to distract myself. And I never actually grew at the same rate as hatchlings my age. Every time I found and fed on new prey, I just wanted it to be over already.

“When I was a kid, I made myself fall all the time, much to the confusion of my parents. I wonder if I was always destined to become one of the Vast. Their parents drop their eggs all the time too. Or maybe I was just traumatized by everything lightning, even as I tried to scare humans with it. Maybe I just got it stuck in my head, getting myself all twisted up in unreality, but I couldn’t let it go.

“Spirals are really good at changing shape; did you know that? Never mind, you probably do. Apparently it’s not just for confusing humans – shifting our bodies and warping our entire selves if we feel like it. Spirals reimagine themselves all the time, though I’m pretty sure there haven’t actually been any others who have turned into an entirely different fear, so kudos to me, I guess.

“I felt myself become something different, even if I wasn’t consciously changing myself. Humans who were afraid of falling caught my eye more than the ones afraid of madness. I could smell the vertigo on them. Don’t know if you can, but to me it smells delicious, enticing. Much better than the crap I used to eat.

“After what must’ve been the hundredth bland attempt at sucking the fear out of something that did nothing for me, I officially had enough. It was easy for me to pick out a human to experiment on. I felt like I had to expel all that friction in one single blow so I’d finally be free of the lightning forever. The guy died, horribly I think, but it worked. Halfway through his journey towards the ground, I let out the biggest blast I’ve ever made, and after that my skies were clear for the first time in my life. Not that I care much about the sky. I just like falling.

“I’m bigger now and I can be as small as I want to be, stretching that fall out until I’m not sure what day it is anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever grow as big as others of the Vast, but at least I’m not bound by lightning anymore. I like the freedom.”

When Mike Crew was done with his story, Jon’s maw opened in a dragon smile.

“Thank you,” he said with a satisfied sigh.

\--

“After Mr. Crew left, I took the liberty to write out his statement for posterity. This one reveals a bit too much about dragons, so I will add it under the closed stacks. Accompanying his statement, Crew has also broken off a piece of his branching horn to leave behind in the archives, stating that he doesn’t care if we have it since his horns grow way too long anyway. It’s hard like coral and smells like ozone, and I’ve put it in a box so it won’t do any harm to my assistants. Lord knows he didn’t just leave it behind as a ‘souvenir’. It’s hard to see without opening it, but after a couple of hours it seems as if mould has started to grow over the surface of the glass, like curling fractals spiralling in on itself.

“Perhaps it’s nothing, as compatible as he is with the Vast, but it seems that even Mr. Crew hasn’t been able to rid himself of what he is entirely.

“End recording.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Spiral joins the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been fucking waiting to write this since before i even wrote chapter 1. 
> 
> possible cw/tw: use of 'deadname' by suspected trans character. I say suspected bc the similarities are there, but the person in question is not human and hasn't given an indication she feels that way about herself. It's fairly minor and I hope not used in a way that can be conceived as triggering, but I am cis so what do I know.  
> If you want to avoid it, skip from:  
> “I was literally a different person back then.-  
> to  
> "This was so-
> 
> I hope it doesn't read as insensitive. I tried to make it fit with canon as much as possible, but also put my own twist on it. Would like to hear your opinions of it.

When Sasha woke up on a Monday morning, there was a door in her home that hadn’t been there before. As she caught a glimpse of the pale yellow in her otherwise ordinary living room it took her an embarrassingly long time to register its existence at all.

It was a familiar door. It wasn’t the model she recognized, but it was the same colour as the one tucked between two bookshelves in Jon’s office. The one that was always bolted shut with two locks screwed into its wood.

It kept her from outright panicking.

Sasha was scared of a lot of things. Shadowy corners at the end of long hallways. Loud men jostling out of bars late at night, completely oblivious to the world around them. She was afraid of strangers, which was why she took krav maga classes on Thursday where they taught her defensive fighting techniques as well as magic. It was a real sort of fear, borne out of experience. It made her feel a bit safer in the face of the unknown.

If it weren’t for her short but terrifying month in artefact storage, she might have written the door off as harmless too. It didn’t have to be Jon’s door, which had always stood inoffensively in his office wall, unexplained and emphasized to be ignored. The archives were such a weird place already, and the creeping fear of looking at something that shouldn’t be there could be attributed to anything in the archives. But now it stood alone, and Sasha could hardly pull her gaze away from it.

The familiarity of it kept her from calling the landlord who would call in the Centre for Magic Control to do something about it. She did send a picture of it to Tim though, who didn’t reply. Jon didn’t answer his phone either, which was arguably worse because he was the one she actually needed right now.

If it was his door, he had to explain what it was doing in her home.

She didn’t try to open it, no matter how much it seemed to beg her to. Sasha had lived in a world ruled by magic long enough to know you didn’t go around touching mysterious doors that magically appeared in your home. For all she knew it would disappear on its own if she waited long enough. And maybe it wasn’t real at all, just magic residue.

It was still there half an hour later, still very real in the wall nestled between her bookshelf and the telly, as if it liked hanging out next to bookshelves. The door that shouldn’t be there stood out like a sore thumb, demanding her attention whenever she caught a glimpse of its pale yellow in the corners of her eyes. Silent, as if it were waiting.

When the door creaked open with an almost joyful creak, her heart sank to her feet.

* * *

The knocking on Jon’s door was insistent and panicked, and as Jon invited Tim in, he looked just as much the part. Tim had no interest in Jon, however. Wasn’t mad at him for one thing or the other. Rather, his eyes were fixed on the yellow door nestled between two bookshelves. 

“Tim?”

“That door is magic, isn’t it?” He said this almost accusatory, staring as if he tried to work something out. “I can feel it. Not the same stuff I use but… It’s weird.”

“We shouldn’t pay it too much attention,” Jon said, not in the least bit interested in explaining Helen to his assistant.

Jon was painfully blind without his extra set of eyes, but as Tim stared at the door like he was about to jump it, dread started to settle in Jon’s gut, anticipating the implications.

“Tim,” he said with a voice that could almost compel, “What’s happened?”

“Sasha hasn’t been in yet, has she?”

Jon stood up now, Tim’s worry shifting over to him with an anxiety he hadn’t felt since the last time he saw the Distortion grab someone. “No. I assumed she’s running late. What are you thinking, Tim?”

He hadn’t thought it too odd. Even Sasha, reliable and punctual, had traffic jams sometimes. He hadn’t thought to worry.

“I don’t know,” Tim said, his thick eyebrows furrowed with confusion, pleading at Jon for an answer. “I’m not sure. This was the last thing she sent me.”

Tim fumbled in his pocket and brought out his phone. He showed Jon a picture of nothing interesting at all. No smears. No indication the photographer had misaligned the camera. Just a nondescript wall with a bookshelf, leaving little room for anything else but the corner of a TV and a potted plant on the other side. It was captioned, ‘Isn’t this Jon’s door?’

Jon nearly launched himself away from the desk.

“Helen!” he shouted while banging on the pale, yellow door.

“Jon, what’s happened to Sasha?” Tim’s voice was low and stern, looking at Jon in mild horror as he called her by name, as if that was what was scary right now.

“Hopefully, nothing,” Jon replied as he waited for her reaction, breathing with trepidation, then barked another, “HELEN” accompanied by a loud thud.

He had frantically screwed locks into the wood to keep the Distortion out in semblance of control. They were useless, he knew that. If Helen wanted that door open, she could.

“What’s that mean, Jon? Who is Helen?”

The matte black doorknob shook right as Tim said that, just a little. Like a monster in the closet rattling the door for fun, to bleed the fear. Jon would force out that wretched monster by its wings.

“Open up,” Jon said low, not caring for Helen’s games.

The handle turned then, the door inching forward with a teasing creak until her hallway filled its entire frame.

“What the hell,” was the only thing Tim could say before Jon told him to stay put.

“I’ll take care of it,” Jon said, disappearing into the deep stretch of distorted patterns of the coiling hallway. The door closed behind him with a creak of finality.

* * *

“Who are you?” Sasha asked the woman in front of her. She had no idea how long they had been standing there, staring at each other. Every moment felt like an eternity, yet exactly the second after she heard the pale, yellow door open in front of her. She hadn’t even remembered stepping in.

“Who do you think I am?” The woman in the hallway said. Her hair was curly. Her suit was pressed. Her colours were shifting like iridescent scales.

“You’re the door in Jon’s office.” Setting aside the awkward inhuman phrasing of that, Sasha’s eyes lit up. There was no doubt about it now. The pale yellow of the door had looked out of place in her home, yet despite its wrong shape all she could connect it to was Jon’s office.

The woman smiled, her lips splitting in an awful grin. There was something off about it. Her teeth weren’t aligned properly. They shifted when Sasha looked at them for too long, and maybe there were a few too many and a few too thin and a few without a clear line that separated them from each other. It was as if she tried to make a mouth from memory but forgot how they were supposed to work. Like a computer-generated face.

“Think of me as a fingernail inside a mouth. I pull the scraps from between my teeth, looking for food that can be tossed out or thrown further into my throat. I make the meals more satisfying, wringing it loose. But don’t confuse me for what lies in the centre of my hoard. I simply scratch whatever makes my gums itch. You can call me Helen.”

As the woman spoke, Sasha sobered up. If she spoke of a hoard, it meant that Helen was a dragon, hardly any doubt about that. Strange like the door in Jon’s office, but familiar in a way Sasha could try to make sense of. A needle she could pull her threads through. It also made her tense up, because standing in the centre of the hallway was Sasha, waiting for that searching fingernail to reach over and pluck her off like meat between teeth to be thrown into the dragon’s throat.

“How is the Archivist doing? Eating well, I hope?”

It took a moment for the question to sink in, the hallway doing its best to mimic a falling rollercoaster and pulling her thoughts with it. Somehow, Sasha didn’t think Helen was talking about the statements. Theoretically she knew Jon ate the written statements, but other than the noise from behind the office door, there was no indication he got anything out of it. Jon was gaunt, skinny, and though it wasn’t nice to say; he looked rather weak.

The woman in front of Sasha very much did not.

“I don’t… I hardly see him eat.”

She supposed that was a good thing, because she did not want to imagine Jon eating humans.

The bright coloured hallway throbbed in her eyes and it was hard to think with the constant shifting of the colours and patterns on the walls and floors, screaming at her in 70s vintage and mirrors like TV screens. She couldn’t bear to stand up anymore and sank down into a fainting couch that had appeared next to her calves. Helen looked at it as if she hadn’t noticed it was there, her eyebrows slightly raised though the content smile never left her face.

“Still a private eater,” Helen said, her hand tracing circles on a glass table where there hadn’t been one previously. “Such strange eating habits.”

Sasha followed the movement with her eyes, slow and languid. The world warped in front of her and just like that, she sat in a metal wire chair – one you might see outside of restaurants once the seasons got warmer, with Helen sitting opposite of her as if they were out for lunch.

“Would you like something to eat?” Helen offered, producing a cup of swirling coffee from the table, though how she did that Sasha couldn’t tell. It was a little hard to think straight right now.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to accept anything from the woman. Not when she was inside her strange hallway where she couldn’t even trust a couch to retain its shape. Sasha shook her head torpidly. This wasn’t a good place for her to be in. It made her mind foggy, and Helen and her hallways were obviously doing something to her. She had to anchor herself.

“How do you know Jon?”

She needed to reason. She had to keep calm. Keep her focus, not get caught in the swirl of the coffee before her, categorize whatever was happening. Bind her questions to something familiar. Jon seemed like the closest thing.

Thankfully, Helen kept the convoluted answers to herself, “I used to work in the archives. Though, that was back when I was someone else entirely and my hallways weren’t quite as sophisticated as they are now. I don’t know what I was thinking, really, running about gathering statements as if that was of any use to me. Jon didn’t like me much, back then. He’s very distrustful.” She sighed wistfully. “Though, I suppose it wasn’t completely unwarranted.”

Sasha couldn’t picture the woman outside of the twisting corridors, working in a place as regular as the archives. Helen was too outwardly strange for that. Sasha wondered if her hallways warped around her existence, or if she was warped by them. And what would she look like, bound by reality? Would she be more solid of a person then? Could she look at her without getting lost in the off details, like the silver earrings that looked more like stickers than three dimensional objects? Sasha imagined the woman simply swirling and disappearing, pulled apart by reality like the cream in her untouched existential coffee.

Sasha had her hands on top of the table, and Helen regarded them for a moment before placing her own hand on top of Sasha’s. She was cold to the touch, like leather. And heavy, as if something else burrowed under her skin and kept Sasha locked in place. An inexplicable frown passed Helen’s face as she brushed Sasha’s hand.

“I do wish he would visit more often, since I changed so much. I even left a door for him.”

Helen thought of Jon as a friend, then. The door answered at least that question.

“Why don’t you work for the Institute anymore?”

Helen laughed at that. Sudden and accompanied by an echo that bounced off the walls into the depth of the hallway. “You could hardly call what I did in the archives working. You must understand that I am not real. My research was hardly worth anything. I didn’t belong there, in that tower of dragons with its hierarchy and obsession with knowing. It wasn’t my hoard to take care of. I was just bored. I wanted to try and play human, reinvent myself. Thankfully, being a Spiral I’m quite good at becoming something else.”

So, in a way, Helen was like Jon in that. A dragon presenting as human, though probably not because she wanted to come across as harmless to people, like Jon did. If anything, her ever shifting outfit and inhuman smile made a worse picture than Jon’s dragon fangs. Helen gestured with her hands, and her fingers looked much sharper than before.

When she called herself a Spiral though, a little jitter of excitement went through her, though if it was of fear or because she had learned something new, she wasn't sure.

“I was literally a different person back then. _Much_ more confused. But Jon made me feel like getting out of my corridors was worth it. He entertained me, gave me room to grow as a person. Though once that ceiling had been reached there wasn’t much for me to do. I had to go back to my own hoard where I had been cultivating my colours and patterns and mirrors for years. I began to think more about designing interiors than collecting whatever story the Archivist needed to be fed on. So, I decided to quit and started selling houses. I stopped being Michael, and now I’m Helen!”

This was so ridiculous to Sasha that the swirling colours around her promptly fixed themselves in place and stopped giving her headaches.

“You’re a real estate agent?!” Sasha couldn’t help her mouth from falling open. A transgender dragon with a passion for interior design about sucked all the fear from the hallways. It made her suddenly that much more human.

“I am! Though I never get paid for some reason.” Helen considered it thoughtfully, her fingers sharp against her chin, though Sasha imagined the dragon woman never bothered with job applications anyway and skipped straight to breaking into people’s homes. “Hmmmmm. I’ll have to get back to them on that.”

As Helen said all that ridiculous nonsense, the world around them started to finally make sense again.

“I’m Sasha, by the way,” she said, and held out her hand, anticipating Helen’s cold leathery skin on hers again. She felt it was only proper to introduce herself.

“Ahhh, names,” Helen said, and smiled.

Sasha couldn’t help but feel a little bit awestruck, “Yeah.”

* * *

It was hard to tell how long he’d been walking. Helen stretched out her corridors as long as she liked and she held no concept of time which meant her hoard didn’t either, being an extension of herself.

He felt blind as he walked through Helen’s hideous corridors. Without his coat she would reject him immediately as his omnipotence curled her stomach like rotten food. The open door had been an invitation for Jon to join her. It meant Sasha had to be alive, wandering her endless hallways. If she truly had been prey, Helen wouldn’t have let Jon in at all, feigning a chance for him to free her. Helen didn’t play games like that, not anymore – though Jon hoped this more than knew.

“Sasha!” he called for her in the nonsensical hope that she would somehow hear him. His shout distorted, echoing off the walls until it ringed like a headache in his brain. His eyes hurt, begging his dragon eyes to see and know where the hell he was going. But he couldn’t afford getting kicked out so instead he kept on walking. The mirrors warped his steady pace like a funhouse mirror and conveyor-belt at the same time.

The Distortion lay in her labyrinth waiting for the poor souls that entered her hallways; her throat before her actual throat as they endlessly walked and meandered through unstable corridors with no end in sight. That is, until suddenly there was an ending to it all. Her open jagged maw, strangely fixed in place, almost normal after the countless hours, days, years of wandering, presenting herself to her victims in the centre of it all. Simple as that; an open mouth waiting for them to climb in. Crossing the threshold of scaled lips and wicked fangs, stepping onto her tongue, and crawling into the soft wet darkness of her throat to finally disappear forever.

Helen had been furious with him when he first saw what she really was at the centre of her hoard. Though, not furious. She had been more embarrassed at being plucked apart by a Beholding.

Her hallways had changed since the last time he saw her. Previously she had been empty hallways, using wallpapers and rugs and mirrors and paintings aligned to the walls and floors to confuse her guests with their ever-shifting patterns. Now, the narrow corridors were filled with furniture. It looked almost like a model interior from a magazine. Flowers. Pedestals. Sitting corners. Sometimes just a fainting couch between long stretches of nothingness, sometimes a whole modern kitchenette that looked so entirely out of place Jon had to stop in his tracks and wonder if she had at some point sent him to someone’s house while he wasn’t paying attention. Then the colours in the tiles shifted and marble countertops sparked like two-dimensional fireworks in the grains, and Jon knew he was still in her hallway, the distortion of it urging him onwards like muscles contracting in a throat.

He was about to call out again before he heard a voice around the corner of the sloping wall.

“-so sorry you had to go through that. He can be so blunt sometimes-“

Another voice, just as familiar followed up, “-situation isn’t quite like yours-“

Sasha and Helen’s chipper conversation cut right through the madness.

Sasha sat perfectly fine at an elegant terrace table befitting more of a French coffee shop than a narrowly twisted path of a labyrinth.

“Sasha!” Jon called out, surprised and relieved that she turned her head like nothing was wrong. She was perfectly fine. Perfectly proportioned. Startled by Jon more than the Distortion that sat like a human being opposite of her as if they were simply out for lunch.

Her long face poked over her shoulder, her eyes round behind her glasses and smile wide. Not even an animation smear as she waved at him.

“Jon!” she called out, and he trudged closer.

“Jon! What a lovely surprise!” Helen’s smile widened at seeing him, as if hooks pulled on the corners of her mouth until her grin reached her eyes. Her hands were folded neatly on the table.

“Like hell it is,” Jon shot back. “Why did you take Sasha?”

This seemed to confuse Sasha, who looked as if she just realised she’d been kidnapped.

“My goodness, right onto the questioning, are we?” Helen slid off her chair. Or rather, she had never been sitting in the first place, had she? Helen stood poised in her sharp purple suit, which was brown and then turned blue, her lapels ever sharpening.

“Jon, it’s alright. We’ve just been talking,” Sasha said.

“About what?” Jon said a bit snide, not believing for a second Helen got her here with any other intention than to devour her.

“Well, it was about…” She thought it over for a moment with an expression Jon assumed was discomfort, likely realising she couldn’t remember.

“Right,” Jon said, intending to put his body between her and Helen. “We should leave.”

“No, Jon, it’s not like that! We’ve been talking about you actually.”

Jon stopped in his tracks.

“… About me.” Jon gave Helen a sharp glare. “So, you lured me here by taking Sasha.”

Helen shrugged unapologetically. “Well, you never call! And you made it _very_ clear you didn’t want to see me again.” She said this almost playfully.

It was then, as he stared at her painfully human disguise, which smiled at him with a tad too much genuine emotion of not actual happiness but thinly veiled bitterness, that guilt overtook him.

“I never said that,” he said, quieter this time.

“You didn’t have to. Actions speak louder than words.”

“Oh, please. Do you know how many people you’ve taken?”

“I don’t know. How many did you see wandering around in here?”

Jon had not meant people. What he truly meant was assistants. And the answer was just the one, because he had not believed her when she said Emma, the foolishly proclaimed ‘dragon handler’, had tried to control her. Helen was a proper dragon, knew the etiquette when it came to hoards. The only reason why she stole from him (and stealing was a term that had his gut coiling with guilt as well), was to protect herself, not out of malice or disrespect.

It had been a breach of privacy, to look inside of her and untwist whatever lies he thought she was feeding him. Michael, he had known. He had been awkward, eager to please, chaotic because he did not understand what humans were, but it was the sort of evil Jon knew how to deal with. Once Michael knew what he wanted – to be Helen, the Distortion became an entirely different person. And once she became a different person, Jon had to learn to get along with her all over again. But this time, Helen was much more confident, knew much better what she wanted. And Jon, in his paranoia, had not understood this and had lashed out like the idiot he always was and always would be.

He shouldn’t have said what he just said to her. It wasn’t fair.

“I’m sorry, Helen.” He thought of Georgie’s words. That he ought to apologize to Helen for disregarding that she was a different person now. “I know you aren’t who you were back then.”

Helen smiled at him, languid and with intent.

Her iridescent pupils caught his eyes as she slowly cocked her head. Like she pitied him, or as if she was pondering something. Jon followed her movement, caught up in her slitted pupils and elongated neck as she gently swayed her head from side to side like a slowly ticking pendulum. Her skin shimmered with scales. Jon couldn’t look away, his body involuntarily moving with her though not entirely without his consent. She inched closer, her body undulating, her skin shifting patterns of bright red triangles and deep blues and purples through her holographic skin, captivating.

“That’s better,” she said as they moved together.

Jon wished he had wings to flare at her, to stare her down with all of his eyes, taking in her colours with a proper greeting and have her captivated by him in return. For now, he settled with a dance. It must have looked strange to outsiders, his shoulders hunched in submissive pleading of approval, her body long and bonelessly twisting like the snake she was, her hands transforming into sharp knives with pale leathery webs forming between her fingers until they were shaped like bat wings. The mirrors on the wall deepened in colour, no longer showing every corner of the hallway, but her body. Her real body. Thick and long and gliding against itself as it coiled in the centre of it all, larger than the mirrors could possibly showcase. Iridescent, her piebald patterns speaking to him in greetings of warm hellos and barely concealed anger.

The hallway turned dark, her form before him its single focus. He stared her down so intimately he didn’t notice Sasha backing away from them both. “Jon? What’s happening?”

Helen shimmered, her scales changing from one beautifully complex pattern into the next. It had his eyes straining to focus, and a part of him was eager to get lost in it, playing with her like the Spiral and Beholding they were, opposites trying to understand each other. He tried to mimic her movements as best as he could, gliding around her like prey and predator, both equally powerful, but Helen was far more slender than he was and much longer.

“Kind of freaking out right now, guys.”

“It’s alright, Sasha,” Jon said, unblinking and smiling bashfully at Helen. “She’s a friend.”

Helen stared him down. “We are, aren’t we?”

There was no climax in their step, no height, but their symmetry dissipated when Helen allowed it to, their heads bobbing and playing in a way that made Jon weak from validation. Once satisfied, Helen made him stand still so she could coil around him. She encased him, her snaking tail not touching him but respectfully wrapping the space around him as her thick body slid in rows over itself.

To Jon, it meant the acceptance of an old friend who had been angry at him for leaving, for betraying her and isolating himself when she loved him so dearly. She had her moment of anger, but now all she could be was happy that he’d returned to her. An apology accepted.

But to Sasha, Jon looked like stunned prey. Hypnotized. Forced to move against his will, his eyes wide and dark as he took in her growing form. There was an expression on his face of disbelieve and wonder that she couldn’t begin to interpret the meaning of in this context. More fearfully, he looked utterly relaxed as he skirted around Helen’s snaking body before being devoured by her size. As a human, seeing another human being choked with an expression like that – it scared the hell out of her.

Helen had been friendly to her. Terrifying, yes, but polite. Right now though, Sasha was painfully reminded of the fact that Helen was a dragon she didn’t know, and that she stood in territory she ultimately did not – and thinking back on it, never had in the first place – understood.

She wanted to believe Jon was earnest in telling her Helen was a friend, so it was only with a slight tremble in her voice that she let out a sharp, “Jon!”

He snapped to attention. His eyes barely came above Helen’s thick body, faced with the misshapen face of something not quite dragon, not quite human. The bizarre light in the hallway reflected off his pupils oddly. Like he was an animal in the dark, though his eyes glazed over with red.

“Oh, Sasha. I’m sorry,” he said as Helen began to unfurl around him. The light in his eyes disappeared, and he was once again a normal, albeit scruffy looking guy.

Helen followed, suddenly a woman instead of monster. “We were just saying hello. Isn’t that right?” Her hands clapped together triumphantly. Jon nodded.

The walls lightened to an inoffensive beige. The mirrors lost their frames and became geometric reflections in the wall. Square furniture lined the sunken conversation pit they suddenly found themselves standing in, with mauve pillows all around their legs.

“Well,” Sasha folded her arms, her heart racing in her chest. “I’d love a warning next time, yeah?”

“We didn’t mean to scare you,” Jon said. “It must’ve looked rather weird to you.”

“Like a chicken dancing with a snake,” Sasha supplied. “Only terrifying.”

Jon had no answer to that and scratched his neck embarrassedly.

“You should see a proper dance sometime!” Helen said jovially.

Jon’s expression soured. “That would be even worse for her.”

Sasha didn’t doubt that, yet it made her all the more curious about what that would look like.

Helen sunk down into the square couch under them, and despite her unease, Sasha felt herself falling into a purple pillow as well.

“Helen,” Jon said, standing above them. “We should leave.”

“Back to work already? Goodness, still obsessed with your archive, aren’t you.”

“You know it isn’t that. Sasha needs to get out of here.”

Sasha sunk further into the pillows, though if it was on her own accord or Helen pulling her further into her, she wasn’t sure. She wanted to say, ‘I think I’m alright’, but she didn’t think that was entirely true. The world was a little bit lopsided again.

“Oh, how I’ve missed your loyalty. Your assistant has nothing to fear here. You know that now, don’t you?”

“Yes, Helen,” Jon said, though the fugitive glances he sent in Sasha’s direction said otherwise. Sasha hoped she gave him reassuring ones in return. “You can prove that to her by letting us go.”

Helen gave Sasha a long look, her hand reaching towards her shoulder as she sat next to her. Sasha tried not to outwardly recoil but couldn’t help herself. Helen didn’t seem to notice. “Promise me you’ll come back? I get so lonely here without any proper conversation. I’m sure you feel the same.”

No doubt she meant Jon with this, but her eyes peered at Sasha’s so deeply she couldn’t help but think Helen was talking to her.

“I promise, Helen,” Jon said.

“If not, I’ll come visit you.”

Helen’s focus was still fixed on Sasha, and whether that was supposed to be a threat or a promise, Sasha didn’t know. But, as the fear had long slipped out of her body, Sasha wasn’t objected to finding out.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Helen, because I realised there was still some unfinished business.

“Sasha!”

When Sasha stumbled out of the door like a newborn doe on knobby legs, Tim shot up from his seat and rushed to her side. She leaned against him, clutching his shirt like a lifeline as he held her.

“Jesus,” Tim said. “Are you okay?”

“Wooooo, everything is spinning. Why’s it spinning?” she replied, led to Jon’s office chair which she readily sank into.

Jon came right after her. Stripped of the protection his Beholding powers gave him, he didn’t feel too hot himself, and crossing the threshold back into reality had his head swaying from side to side. Before he could steady himself against his desk, though, Tim had him wrapped up in a bone-crushing hug, and Jon let out a small choked ‘Tim!’ in surprise.

“Thank fucking god,” Tim said, his head cradled against Jon’s hair, far taller than his boss was and engulfing him in his relief. “Was about to break down the door myself if you hadn’t shown up soon.”

Not knowing what to do, Jon awkwardly patted Tim on the back. It surprised him a little, how unafraid Tim was to hug his co-workers, Sasha, and Martin alike. It made his heart swell something fierce to know Tim had been worried about him just as much as Sasha. Had he been sitting in that chair all this time? Waiting and not knowing where Sasha had gone, let alone trusting Jon to bring her back safely. Unable to do anything because Helen’s door would not open unless she wanted it to.

Tim released Jon then, a heavy frown on his face. “What the hell happened? Where did you go?”

“Met an old friend,” Jon replied, his head flushed.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Tim glanced between him and Sasha, wary relief washing over his face. “Do they have a habit of kidnapping people?”

Jon didn’t want to answer that, lest he invoked another dragon hunt. “She meant no harm.”

“She was quite lovely, actually,” Sasha supplied, her eyes unfocused.

“But very dangerous,” Jon told her. He couldn’t emphasize this enough, though hoped the spinning hallways had been enough of an indication how horrific it could have ended if she wasn’t his archival assistant. “She shouldn’t have taken you. It isn’t safe for humans to stay in her hallways for too long, and she’s not the best at tracking time. How long have we been gone, Tim?”

According to Tim, he went in about an hour ago, which meant Sasha had walked the hallways for little under three hours. Jon sighed, though more with relief than shock. It could’ve gone much worse. Helen could have kept them much longer.

It was then that Martin entered the office with a worry on his face that only intensified when he saw that Jon and Sasha had been safely returned to the archives. “Oh, you guys! Where the hell have you been?!”

They gave Tim and Martin the rundown of what had happened; the door in Sasha’s home, the hallways, Helen, and Sasha’s conversation with her, how Jon had Helen’s guarantee that she would not harm anyone in or from the archives, that they had an understanding.

When Jon namedropped her species, Tim let out an exasperated ‘holy fuck’ with his elbows up and his hands running through his hair in disbelieve. It was a common reaction to Spirals and not at all unwarranted. They were a flashy type of dragon, rare like most species were, but memorable enough to have become notorious. Even if humans couldn’t accurately retell their experience with one, mentioning hallucinatory scales and swirling patterns was enough to tip most people off to the nature of the beast they had seen.

“She didn’t do anything bad to me, Tim,” Sasha said, her face cleared up now. “I actually thought I had her figured out for a bit when I started asking questions, trying to make sense of it.”

Jon caught the glance she sent in his direction, the words ‘until’ unspoken because both of them knew the reaction Tim had to dancing dragons. They didn’t need to unpack that can of worms.

“That’s good.” Jon nodded. “Even if she lied, keeping yourself focused helps battle the confusion. It’s good practice for most interactions with dragons.”

Except Beholdings, where knowing was often worse than ignorance. But it would be redundant to say this; he’d told them already, he was sure.

Sasha frowned. “You think she lied about anything?”

“From what you’ve said, no, I don’t think so. But she is a Twisting Deceit. It Is Lies. I’m frankly surprised she was so candid with you. Normally it’s like pulling teeth.” He added that last bit under his breath, the memory of all their frustrating interactions surfacing.

Sasha had a glint in her eye. “Well maybe she just likes me better.”

“I suppose she did seem taken with you.” Helen had been abnormally docile. Jon had attributed it to her wanting to seem trustworthy towards Jon, but maybe it was just Sasha’s charm.

Sasha’s eyebrows wiggled. “Very taken.”

“Let me stop you right there, Sash,” Tim intercepted. “We are _not_ flirting with dragons. Even _if_ it presents itself as a fit older woman.”

“Oh, goodness,” Martin breathed softly.

Jon was taken aback as well. “Sasha, you’re not thinking of seeking her out, are you? She’s dangerous.”

“Oh, come on,” she said haughty. “She said she would visit. Don’t know if she meant me or you, but if I’m being honest, I’m willing to take her up on it.”

“She was talking to me!”

“But she looked me straight in the eye when she said it.”

“That’s because sometimes, Helen is a literal two-headed snake!” Jon stared her down, and she gave just as much of a defying look in return, her mischievous brown eyes mirthful behind round glasses, the dimple in her smile cheeky as she held his eye contact.

“They’re fighting over a messed-up dragon lady,” Tim said audible only to Martin next to him while Jon and Sasha raged on. “This is the worst conversation I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Martin replied. “I think it’s sweet. This Helen person doesn’t sound so bad.”

Tim gave him a look and scoffed. “Of course you would say that.”

“Sasha. Dragons like me – dragons who care more about humans than their fear, we’re rare. I know Helen can be very persuasive, but you can’t trust her.”

“You trust her.”

“That’s because I understand what she is. And she knows what I am. We are equals. You and Helen are not.”

“Jon, I’ve literally never heard something so xenophobic come out of your mouth.”

“Sasha. I’m serious.”

She sighed, her lopsided smile fading. “Look- I get it, Jon. I get that she’s dangerous. Today was scary, yeah? At least for a little while. But you said she wouldn’t do us any harm, and if you trust her, then I trust her.”

Jon averted his eyes. He did trust Helen. Things had gone south when he didn’t. He simply didn’t want Sasha to run off towards danger whenever she saw something interesting, though maybe that only meant he would have to trust her just as well. He sighed. “Okay.”

“Does that mean she’ll come back?” Martin said. There was a hint of nervousness in his voice, likely because he had no idea what he should expect.

“Maybe,” Jon said. “I think she understands that it makes me nervous. O-or rather, you. Makes you nervous when there’s other dragons.”

“Will there be others?” Tim said, an edge in his voice. Jon thought about it. He didn’t have many friends, truth be told. Basira, Georgie and Gerard looked human, but most of their lives were shrouded in just as much magic as Helen’s. And the archives, or the Institute for that matter, weren’t entirely closed off to strangers, as long as they behaved in his and Elias’ territory.

When he didn’t answer quick enough, Tim added, “other _friends_. Other dragons coming to visit?”

“They might,” he admitted, and his assistants all had their own look of surprise and anticipation. “But not in the way Helen visits. I’m not in the habit of inviting them over, but they do usually announce themselves beforehand, which means I’ll warn you guys in turn.”

Tim begrudgingly accepted that. With as much explained as he could, Jon sent Tim and Martin off to work, which left him and Sasha alone in his office – her on his chair, and him leaning against the desk, their roles almost reversed. She would have a field day with that.

“How are you feeling?” he said, looking her over. She seemed fine enough. No more head lolling and swirling irises, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Feels like I’m all curled up inside,” she said.

He nodded in a way he hoped was understanding, disregarding the mental image of literal curled-up insides.

“You can rest at home for a few days if you need it. I can’t send you off alone on the tube, but I’m sure Tim would be willing to accompany you home.” They seemed the best of friends, and they knew where the other lived. Jon wouldn’t mind letting Tim go for an hour to make sure Sasha got home safely.

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that.”

Jon nodded, unable to stop himself from looking her over. There was that whiff of Twisting that clung to them both, and were he a dragon at the moment, he would have had to stop himself from digging his nose against her clothes and see for himself how deep the spirals ran. Sasha was quiet for a moment, no doubt the confusion still settling over her mind like a blanket when she wasn’t arguing or asking questions, and Jon gave her the time to collect herself.

“Helen said she’s lonely,” Sasha started.

“Yes.”

Helen lay as a solitary beast in the centre of her hallways, always alone, surrounded by her often impenetrable hoard. She had only herself to wander the corridors, looking for staggerers she had to coax further towards her throat.

“So, you will visit her?”

“Yes,” came his immediate answer. He had to, because he promised. And if he wouldn’t, Helen would come to the archives uninvited again, and the idea of Sasha and Helen bonding together sat weird in his gut.

“She said you’re lonely too.”

Jon had no reply to that. His fingers traced the hard cardboard of the box of unfiled documents on his desk, not quite open to talk to his assistants about whatever it was he felt.

The lack of an answer was enough an answer for Sasha. She reached out, her hand on top of his, stilling his wandering fingers. “It’s because you don’t go out, isn’t it?”

He looked at her, his eyes meeting her stubborn ones. Was it worry that laced them? Did she want to reassure him? Or was Jon simply a question to be unravelled? He did not want to think about going outside. He couldn’t afford that need to slip out of the comfort of the night and into his working hours. Thinking about it only made it that much more unbearable.

“Maybe.” He released his hand from under hers, hoping he didn’t come across as too harsh. He couldn’t fault her for being curious, he supposed. He liked it when his assistants asked questions, their curiosity infectious, socializing in a way he as a Beholding understood best. Difficult questions were par for the course, even if he had no intention of answering them.

“But you said you have friends. Don’t you invite them over? Or wait, are they too big, maybe…”

“Most of them are human sized. Though some probably don’t fit through the Institute’s doors.”

He thought of Daisy storming through the hallway, uncaring if her bulk scraped the walls. He thought of Oliver, or whoever he was these days, tall as a tower and watching over buildings from above rather than entering them. He was technically more of an acquaintance than a close friend, but just as well, he didn’t mind his company either.

“I loved talking to Georgie. She was a riot.”

He gave her a small smile. “She liked you too.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead, “It’s not that I don’t want them here. I do. But they have their own lives. And I’ve got my archive.”

“Okay,” she said, not pressing the matter further.

She gave him one last peering look before she deemed herself ready to go, as if he was the one who needed reassurance. Arm-in-arm with Tim, she left the Institute with many more questions on the back of her mind.

* * *

When he knocked on Helen’s door, his talons curled into a fist, standing on his two hind legs, he almost felt nervous. Chasing after Sasha had been spurred on by anger and worry, but all he felt now was guilt and anticipation. Grown from fondness and mistakes, albeit, yet Helen never failed to strike an imposing figure compared to his much smaller form, no matter how glad she was to see him.

“Hmm, maybe I’ll tape those eyes shut, this time,” she said after her door creaked open, her grin perpetually audible in her voice. Jon couldn’t help his wings from bristling, tucking themselves closer to his flanks. “Well, come on in. Don’t let my acid reflux prevent you from feeling welcome.”

He fell to his feet and trotted over the doorstep into her swirling corridor. It was much more beautiful now that he could look at the patterns properly. The wallpaper shifted colour, from muted greens to fiery reds, showing off all that she had acquired over the years he had missed from her life. She shifted her form as well. No longer a tall woman whose hair wanted to curl and stretch with wild abandon, but a snake whose only bones lay in her leathery wings and the horns that swayed as gently as the curves of the hallway. She was a smaller snake, though still stretched far into her corridor, her serpentine head unable to lower herself under Jon’s collarbone. Her sharp thumbs rested against the rug and her body clung to the floor as if she was afraid of falling upwards. Then, as soon as Jon had that realisation, he found himself standing on the ceiling, his claws clutching into that same rug.

“Helen!”

He fell down onto the ceiling above, rumpling his wings and his tail, smacking his horns into the rug he had previously stood upon, tangling himself up in it while Helen’s laugh echoed through the room.

“I didn’t come here just for you to antagonize me,” he grumbled, rolling over and trying to yank his horns free from the tangled mess.

“Aw, still no fun, are you Archivist?”

She dug her hyena-like snout between his horns, resting against the rug to give him the leverage to free himself.

“Speak for yourself,” he said. One firm pull sent him backwards and he shook his head, scratching the thick scute around his horns.

She came over to sniff him, nudging his horns with her nostrils flaring over them. “Hm. Elias still keeping you, then?”

“What? No.”

“Are you sure? I can smell him from a mile away. Disgusting. Do you want me to uncurl you?”

Elias was his boss, one rung above him in the hierarchy, so of course the smell lingered. He wouldn’t mind her cleaning the stench of hemp off him, though that likely meant he would reek too much of her Spiral scent instead, and Elias wouldn’t like that. Bossy prick.

Not understanding the point Helen tried to make antagonizing Elias, he shrugged her off. “Speaking of uncurling, maybe I shouldn’t stay here for too long.”

“What if we went to your place instead?" she offered. "Would you feel better then? I certainly would.”

A door opened to his home, and before he could agree or disagree, she expelled him like vomit into his living room. He let out a small growl of surprise.

She slithered over the wooden floor, leaving a trail of unharmed paper in her wake as Jon eyed them for any damage.

“My, what a collection! Do your assistants know about this?” She brushed a bundle of photographs with her sharp thumb, eying its contents. Suddenly human, she sat on the couch, spreading the series of eye-trauma between her hands, bulging eyeballs and gore staring up at her gleeful smile. “Goodness, so brutal.”

“Yes,” he said noncommittally.

His assistants had visited and had tried not to look at his hobby too much. Some of the cases rightfully fit in the archives, but since most of them had no visible trace of magic, it wasn’t something Research cared to explore, which meant he had to take care of it himself. They were unsolved cases, sent to him by Basira or dug up by himself, supplemented by Basira if it suited her and sometimes his assistants when they weren’t too busy with their real work. His assistants had little business making it their job to catalogue it in the archives, nor would he want them to. His archive had enough body horror already.

Ultimately, he had to do all the research himself, often leaving it unfinished and unsolved since he couldn’t go out. It hurt him, sometimes, the open endings to the stories; statements uncompleted. But it kept him fed and busy for the most part.

“Of course they won’t help you with this. Look at these images.”

“Helen,” he said, sitting opposite of her, watching her while she took in the photographs and supplemental documents with dull interest. “I was wondering how you’ve been.”

She lowered the photos, a broad grin on her face. “So polite. I’ve missed that.”

He ignored that. “Listen, Helen. I know I’ve said this already, but I really am sorry for how I treated you. I shouldn’t have tried to Know you.”

She slithered over his couch, the photos falling down, forgotten. “Water under the bridge.”

“And I was wondering…”

“Yeeesss?” She slurred the s, her tongue slipping out of her mouth, mocking a snake’s speech.

“You came up in a conversation with Georgie. You’ve met.”

“Hm. So sweet.”

“And we got to talking. About you. Or rather, who you used to be. She recommended I reach out-“

Her sharp thumbs dug into the fabric of the couch as she brought herself forwards, her long neck swaying. “How nice of her! What a good friend. I must agree, it’s been such a long time since we had a chat. Thank you for reaching out.”

“Helen, I’m sorry.”

“How long has it been, Jonathan?”

Jon ducked his head. “Seven years.”

“Hm. All alone for three of them.”

“Yes.” Three lone years since the last of his assistants left. It was why he had been so hesitant to face them once Elias finally hired Sasha, Martin, and Tim. He had to get used to having people around again, other than the occasional visitor or librarian asking for documents. He hadn’t known how to talk to them.

As terrible of an assistant as she might have been, Helen had been with him the longest. Terribly unreliable, drifting off towards her own pursuits for weeks or even months on end, but she’d always come back. Not always with valuable documents, or even a newspaper which letters hadn’t rearranged themselves into an unintelligible swirl, but he had known her, grown close. Rescued him from the Strangers even. Tried to feed him when none of his assistants were left to provide him supplemental materials to add to his hoard. And he’d insulted her by trying to know her when she changed into Helen.

“Listen, Helen. Me and Georgie came to talking. She... alluded to a human term, though I’m not sure if it fits you at all, and I didn’t know how to bring it up and I wasn’t sure how to even approach you after what I did.”

“Trying to see into my inner core and figure out if I really was Michael or honest about my intentions and unravelling me down to my essentials, mapping every part of me with those gruelling eyes of yours, yes. You’ve apologized for that.”

There was bitterness behind those words, but she smiled her wide snake smile. Helen did not look away from the things that bothered her. She curled around them.

Jon sat low on the ground, caught up in her hypnotic eyes.

“Yes. Right… Georgie visited, and when I referred to you as Michael, she suggested the name might bring you discomfort, that you wouldn’t want to be associated with the person you used to be. B-but, uh, you’ve referred to yourself as Michael a few times now and… Well, I just wasn’t sure.”

“My, I had the exact same conversation with your assistant.”

“O-oh? Really.” This surprised him only a little. Sasha would know more about this topic than him, of course. And she was much easier to talk to.

“I switch gender every few decades or so. Not just that, I am literally a different person each time. But my core stays the same. I am not Helen, or Michael. I am the Distortion.” She curved her head to look at him upside down, as if to prove her point. Her scales slithering over the fabric of the couch tickled his ears. “It’s a good analogy for what it is, though. Don’t call me he. Don’t call me Michael as I am now, and we’ll be fine.”

“Right. Yes. Of course.” Jon wouldn’t, and he hadn’t.

She glided over. She kept her fingers curled up in her white leathery wings, bendable unlike Jon’s, and she thumbed a thick scale on the side of his face with her long nail. It was a nice feeling, talon so sharp against his itching jaw.

“Now, where’s your cd player? I’ve been saving up this Ruth White album for years.”

The music was warped when they played it, electronic music echoing eternally through the high arches of his home. It was horrible, but she strung him along as they danced. Properly this time, Jon’s wings and eyes spread as he knew Helen as much as a friend could, and she contorted her body in ways he could not mimic. It was a dance of knowing and confusing, of tugging and pulling, of swaying and seeing as he traded her secrets for his without judgement or intrusion. One friend, ancient, the other young. A friendship rebuilt. It did not matter what was in Helen’s nature or what Jon had done. What mattered was trying to follow the Distortion’s rapidly shifting patterns and breaking the Archivist’s unrelenting focus.

And for the first time in a long time, Jon laughed heartily alongside his friend.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elias does some Elias things - no plot relation, just flavour text. And the assistants have a conversation over curly chips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break. I felt really uninspired and kind of down + I wanted to plot some things out + conversations suck. I'm working up to a chapter I've been dying to write since like ten chapters ago, but the right moment hasn't come up yet (I think? honestly i could just write whatever but for some reason I wont. just end me now how is this fic so long) The assistants have some stuff to work through first. The next update might be slow too. 
> 
> Thank you gabby for supporting me. wouldnt be updating this fic without you.

Two good things happened to Elias today. One, the Distortion had made its appearance again, kidnapping Miss James and leaving behind that awful stench of Spiral on her and Jonathan both. It made his blood boil, that warping scent that mixed so badly with his own, and it made him want to break down the beast’s yellow door and drag it out by the horns, demanding what it did in his territory. Watching the chaos in the archives only brought Elias pleasure when he was the instigator of it. Elias didn’t like arbitrary loose ends, and the existence of that door in Jon’s office had bothered him far too much already. As it was no longer part of the Institute, Elias couldn’t know for certain what the Distortion would do under the guise of helping Jonathan, fond as it was of him.

But alas, to properly fight it he would have to tread into its domain, and as the Distortion was much older and far more powerful than him it would likely murder him within seconds if he wasn’t careful. That notion – as exhilarating as it was to entertain the idea of dominating the Spiral – kept a good distance between him and the yellow door.

The second good thing was that Peter of the Lukas family had been spotted in the Thames only an hour’s drive away from Chelsea, which meant he had the Lonely dragon to take out his anger on.

Jon fed him a statement that had been humorously stereotypical; a sailor heard a fog’s horn during his travel and thought he saw the scales of a mermaid under the rippling surface of the sea. The man leaned over the railing, eager to see more, eager to touch the woman’s fish tail and lay with her lonely as he was after months of sea faring. But of course, it hadn’t been a mermaid, which he quickly realised as the beast rose to meet the man. Its glimmering scales, fragile and soft from far away turned monstrous and gigantic as the dragon’s tail broke the surface of the water and the man realised with dumbstruck horror that he wouldn’t be fucking a beautiful woman in the mists that day. His only saving grace was the inexplicable jerk of the ship and the resulting shock against the jagged rocks that sent him flying backwards and away from the ocean, followed up by the distress signal sent to another ship that led him to safety.

The man had been safely brought ashore, but Elias was convinced the lonely beast still roamed the now misty waters around Canvey Island. With Jon’s Beholding magic, it was easy to pinpoint exactly where.

Before Jonah was Elias, he was a scholar. And before he was a scholar, he fought monsters. Dragons, specifically. Before his wish to become one, he wished to slay them. He was powerful enough to take them on, especially the younger, more inexperienced ones, and the thrill of handling their horns with the threat of being ripped apart by their teeth never left him completely as he grew older, even in his quieter years. Mordechai was one he never managed to catch, disappearing into oblivion completely a hundred or so years ago, but the pathetically small skull of Evan still decorated a corner of his lair.

But, loath to admit, he had become complacent ever since he obtained his tower of Beholding. A terrible realisation to have when he had strived for power all his life, but Peter always cheered him up whenever he felt the need to joust. The idiotic old beast – despite his eloquent wishes for solitude he never refused Elias’ taunts. The Forsaken seemed convinced he was merely toying with Elias, allowing him to handle his horns and take him up the sky only to drop him to his death once the freezing wind bit his fingers too harshly. Whether he returned for Elias on his own accord, or because Elias switched up with down so he could land on the dragon’s back was apparently unknown to Peter. Loyalty, it certainly wasn’t. Peter often did mean to kill him. Though saying Elias had the dragon under his feet felt too diminutive of the creature’s powers. Dragons couldn’t be fully tamed – even Jon had his peculiarities and deviances. Elias wouldn’t have it any other way.

Fighting monsters was always jolly good fun.

* * *

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, the assistants fell into the habit of having lunch outside the Institute together. Martin felt a bit weird excluding Jon, though it was nice to take a break from the robed wizards and sorcerers that hovered around them, swiping their cloaks and dirtying the books they loaned from the library with salad sauce, and consequently the sometimes exploding hamburgers of college kids showing off their spells. Plus, eating at Burger King was much cheaper than at the Institute's cafeteria.

They escaped the Institute to take a break from magic, making it a custom to avoid talking about work for the sake of their collective mental health. It was, however, ridiculously easy for the conversation to swing back to dragons. Admittedly, it was usually Sasha who brought them up. Martin, who had little leeway to command the conversations anyway, went along with it.

“Okay, I’ll be the one to say it,” Sasha said, sitting next to Tim, opposite of Martin. A curly chip was currently being tortured by her fingers, straightened out before being split in two. “I’m getting kind of worried about Jon.”

Martin frowned; his hands loose around his drink as he thought about what she could mean. He worried about Jon in general. Martin saw him make long hours, skip on breaks, roam between the shelves and cabinets and hallways of the archives like he needed to make sure his hoard was still intact, literally lost in work. The wounds he’d gotten during the Prentiss attack had gradually turned into scars, much quicker and neater than theirs had healed, but Jon hadn’t lost the crazed look in his eyes that seemed to steer his every direction, as if there were more crawlers to be found under the floorboards and old tomes. Jon sounded okay, didn’t look okay. He hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary (for his doing), but Sasha spoke into existence what Martin already felt nestled around his heart: something was not right with Jon.

“I don’t make a habit of getting worried about my bosses,” Tim said flippantly, hanging back in his seat and playing with his phone.

“Oh, sure. So, what was that bear hug I saw when we came out of Helen’s door?” she quipped. “Wishful thinking?”

Martin flicked his eyes at Tim, suppressing a ‘wait, you guys hugged?’ before he could out himself as disgustingly envious.

Tim gave Sasha a look that betrayed nothing, then rolled his eyes. “Ok, fine. I ‘care’ about Jon. I ‘get’ the appeal now.”

“‘Cos you saw how diddly darn cute he was.”

“He’s tiny.”

“And scrawny,” Sasha added.

“Could pick him up and stop him from bumping into my legs every time he zooms past me. No idea what I was so scared of.” Tim said this casually, like he believed it. But Martin had seen Tim when he cowered on the floor, looking up at Jon flaring his wings above him like a demon; one deadly afraid, the other ravenous. It was a view Martin couldn’t easily forget and he’d been standing a safe distance away. The view from Tim’s perspective had been way worse.

Martin cast his eyes downwards, rubbing his thumbs over each other as his drink cooled his palms.

“Actually, I’ve been wondering about him too.” His voice was small, cutting through their banter. “He’s always been cagey about himself, but ever since he said he never flies anymore, I’ve wondered…”

“Why he never leaves the archives,” Sasha said.

Martin nodded. “If I was a dragon I wouldn’t abandon flying for some dusty old books.”

Martin never caught Jon wistfully staring. Only intensely. As if he watched a horrible accident right in front of him that he couldn’t pull away from. He didn’t look dreamily as if he fantasized and as such Martin didn’t know if Jon daydreamed at all, wished for anything else but his archive or wondered what life was like outside of it. He’d caught a glimpse of it after he had asked Jon about his wings. Nothing in his unreadable dragon expression betrayed wistfulness, but he had answered with a finality that couldn’t be interpreted as anything other than longing: ‘Yes, Martin. I deeply wish I could fly again, but it can’t be helped.’

And that’s what Sasha was asking them. Why couldn’t it be helped?

“Maybe it’s a curse,” Sasha said. There was no smile on her face. She didn’t lean in like she had some fun theories to tear apart like she usually did when Jon or another dragon was the hot topic of the conversation. It seemed more as if the problem needed solving, though Martin had no idea how to go about that. “What if the thing that binds him to the archive prevents him from going outside?”

“Who do you reckon cursed him, then?” Martin said. Dragons kept awfully close to their hoards already, didn’t they? Maybe it was natural – no, that didn’t sound right. There were tons of statements about free roaming dragons. Desolations had massive hoards and still travelled the world.

“My bet is on Elias,” Tim said, entirely nonplussed by the topic, scrolling away on his phone and taking a bite of his burger, pretending he wasn’t interested. “He’s weird.”

“Could be,” Sasha said, before taking a sip of her drink. “Elias knows about Jon too.”

“Do you think he’s a Beholding too?” Martin said. “It always feels like he wants something from me. Like he wants to have a proper sit down and get to know me through interrogation. Sounds pretty Beholding to me.”

Not to mention, nobody had any idea of how old Elias really was. Everyone he talked to just suspected ‘hundred-something-year-old wizard’, like Jonah Magnus had been, as if ‘Head of the Magnus Institute’ was a title held only by sorcerers.

“I don’t know,” Sasha said. “It’s possible. Maybe it’s a hierarchy thing. He’s the boss so Jon can’t leave.”

“But that would mean we can’t leave either. Since we’re part of the hoard?” Tim intercepted, putting his phone away and joining the conversation fully. “I mean, it makes sense, because we should’ve quit when Prentiss burst through the wall.”

Martin tensed. He hadn’t considered that at all. He wasn’t the bravest and getting attacked by wyrms was enough reason to send in his letter of resignation. Not to mention the promise of more creatures visiting the archives had him glancing over his shoulder every time Rosie called in a visitor. Then again, he had already seriously debated quitting after the attack. He had spent those days thinking of Jon, left to the mercy of yet another assistant he would’ve had to get used to, and that idea hadn’t sat right with Martin. He liked Jon, and if he left, he would see him less. That hurt him more than any flesh-eating wyrms could.

It wasn’t magic that had kept Martin with the Institute. He knew magic. Or at least Jon’s. His felt creeping, paranoid. Tingling, like the foam bursting from his hands spurred on by fear. For as far as Martin was aware, he knew when Jon used his powers. And Martin didn’t stay with the archives out of fear, but because he couldn’t bear to think of another scared Tim lashing out at Jon.

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Martin said. “At least, I’ve got _my_ reasons for staying.”

“I agree,” said Sasha. “I’ve already decided to stay because I want to know more. Not because of magic. Write it off as me being too damn curious, but the research we do is way too interesting even if the job disadvantages suck. And you said you’re gonna quit after the… you know.”

Defeated, Tim sighed. “Yeah, that’s true.” He leaned back in his chair. “And then I’ll never have to see him creeping around again.”

If Martin didn’t know any better, he would have thought Tim sounded sad about it despite the obvious whimsy in his voice.

“Oh, shut it, Tim,” Sasha scoffed before Martin could. “You love the attention.”

Martin smiled at that. Tim did a little flourish with his hand.

“Who knows,” Martin said, “Maybe after we break him free, he can torment Tim at home.”

“Jesus. Don’t even joke. I’m hundred percent convinced he’ll do it.” Tim stole Sasha’s unopened dip. Martin smiled around his straw. “Are you guys gonna be all heroic though? Break the dragon out of the tower, guns blazing.”

“Eh,” Martin shrugged. “Could be fun.”

“What do you mean ‘we’? Tim, if you’re still gonna pretend like you don’t care, I’m gonna kick your ass.” Sasha rolled her eyes before jovially adding, "I'm okay with flipping the script. Speaking as the only woman in our group, I’m kind of done with stereotypes. Jon already ‘saved’ me from Helen’s sexy hallways."

As she said this, Tim’s grin faded into a smile, his fingers tapping softly onto the greasy table. He had his limits, it seemed, about how much joking around he could handle. The archives had been quiet for a while, almost amicable since Tim decided to return, but when Jon disappeared into the doorway to get Sasha back Martin had found him in near panic, pacing in Jon’s office and ranting at Martin about whether or not he should break down the door and go after them. Martin had kept himself busy making spreadsheets in the breakroom to separate himself from Tim’s infectious fretting, which of course hadn’t stopped his own worrying at all. When he came back to the office to check if there was any news, Sasha had been shaking, nowhere near as adventurous as she made herself out to be now. If Tim had really hugged Jon after he brought her back safely, he must’ve done so with so much relief.

“You guys know the reason why he’s locked up, right.” Tim said it without question. The phrasing made Martin’s inside curl.

“Do we?” he said. He wasn’t so sure, no matter the directions Tim’s thoughts pulled him. “I thought we were trying to figure that out.”

“Well, I don’t know the ‘whodunnit’ exactly, but… He told me.” Tim’s eyes were downcast, his voice sober as he spoke, his talk of heroics seemingly forgotten. “He knows how dangerous he can be out in the world. And I’m not too sure I disagree with him, because even though I’ve only seen a glimpse of what he can do it’s not exactly something I would wanna wish upon my friends or my neighbours. Seems to me he won’t harm anyone this way.”

“Tim,” Sasha said softly, exasperated.

Martin sucked in a quiet breath. “But he’s so conscientious about–“

“–even though he’s trying. Yeah, I know. He’s a good guy deep inside. And maybe that’s just it: he locked himself up. No bigger conspiracy.”

That more than anything made Martin feel terribly miserable.

“He _is_ a good guy,” Sasha defied. “And if you’re right, it seems awfully like he’s punishing himself by refusing to go out. And guys, it’s not just that he doesn’t _want_ to go outside. I don’t think he physically _can_. And that’s what I’m worried about. Why can’t he leave?”

“Sheer willpower?” Tim offered. “The guy did skin himself.”

They all made a face at that.

Martin didn’t want to think about that too much. The horrible mental images made him want to smooth out Jon’s coat and rub the tension from his shoulders, though it also made him afraid to touch him at all, as if it would loosen the skin from his flesh all over again, his trauma exposed. Underneath that hard exterior, Jon felt far too fragile. A person so distant they couldn’t possibly begin to understand him, and not just because he said weird things or spoke of historic events like he’d been there. Not because his diet was different from theirs or because he liked to sleep high up on the shelves. He did things Martin would never in a lifetime consider, no matter how bad things got, all in an effort to become harmless. Human.

Martin couldn’t wrap his head around why he would continue to hurt himself by locking himself up. Like Sasha said, why Jon felt the need to punish himself. Were his powers really that horrible? He fed off fear, yes, but according to Jon he’d been doing that by reading statements too, and there was no indication it hurt the statement givers. Could it there something he had done in his past?

The who might be just as important as the why. If what Tim said was true, that Jon agreed to his own imprisonment, then they should also consider the possibility that someone – or something – helped him.

Possibly even planted the ideas.

“What if it’s the Spiders?” Martin shot straight at his own words. It was just another assumption, but in the moment, he couldn’t come up with any other explanation.

Tim and Sasha quirked their eyebrows at him.

“What if it’s mind control?” he clarified, but their confused faces made him more uncertain by the second. “Like those dragons. What if they make him afraid of himself?”

Their eyebrows rose, and Tim and Sasha shared a look of bewilderment.

“He _is_ deadly afraid of spiders,” Sasha said.

“Yeah, it’s really funny,” Tim said, staring back at her. “But what if it’s actually not?”

Martin was halfway between regretting he’d brought it up and wanting to free Jon from some invisible web he got himself all tangled up in. Jon would know if he was controlled, right? He had his Beholding powers. He could Know. Especially since the sight of regular spiders sent him into a panicked cleaning frenzy wherein no spider was safe already, even in Martin’s hands. Or was the Spider’s manipulation so strong that even Jon couldn’t see it?

“We can’t bring it up,” Martin said quickly, fists clenched, palms cold with the condensation from his drink. “He’ll freak out.”

“So, what do we do then?” Tim said. “Soft interrogation?”

“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Sasha said, ever the mediator. “And I don’t want to pry Jon for information. I’m just worried he might be hurt. We don’t want to barrage him with something he might be uncomfortable with talking about. Spiders or curses or whatever.”

Martin agreed. He wasn’t eager to stir things up, especially now that the archives had some semblance of harmony and reconciliation. Even Tim nodded after thinking it over, not exactly determined, but not denouncing their plans either.

“We’ve got to be supportive,” was the general consensus. Even Tim reluctantly admitted he found the situation strange. “See if he wants our help or not.”

So, they agreed. Gently ask Jon what was up with his whole ‘trapped archivist’ situation. Emphasize their worry about how little they thought he was eating, ask him whether it was the normal amount at all, because they had no frame of reference. Not push him to try and go outside, he’d made that very clear already and consistently mentioning it might upset him. Whatever it was that Jon struggled with, they were here to help him, not burden him further.

The tension dispelled.

“God. I couldn’t have wished for a better, more mysterious job,” Sasha said. The ice cubes in her soda rattled as she took a last big slurp. “These boss-employee relationships are going to be the death of me.”

“He’s 200 years old. I’m sure he’s got much more mysteries up his sleeve.”

“Such as, he still hasn’t told us what band he was in.”

“Still convinced he made it up, by the way,” Tim folded his arms. “Wanna bet it’s something super avant-garde. Theatre or something. Or Opera.”

Sasha laughed. Martin grimaced.

Martin tried a joke, “Kate Bush cover band.”

“Oh, god. That’s it.” Sasha grinned, taking the last bits of her chips. “Maybe that’s why he always changes the topic. The lad’s embarrassed.”

“Speaking of old weirdos and being locked inside the Institute,” Tim said, changing the topic, “You guys ever seen Mr. Bouchard in the wild?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter gives the Jon Situation a little bit more catharsis? Thank you guys so much for reading. I love you.
> 
> also, dunno if the uk has curly fries but this is MY fantasy au and i get to make the rules.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The archival assistants like subtle, but end up not doing subtle. As long as Jon gets cuddles, right?

Jon knew when he was being watched.

Though their eyes might not be infused with magic, when he turned his back on his assistants, he still felt their staring drill sockets into his hide. He feigned ignorance to their curiosity. If he turned around and stared back, returned that favour upon them, they would fluster and leave. So, he didn’t. To be seen by his hoard and accepted thereby – it felt good.

After a week of silent beholding though, Jon felt properly paranoid, and he was honestly touched that they cared so much to make him so. It made him insane, of course. He could hardly stand it. But these were games Ceaseless little Watchers played since they hatched, and Jon was no exception. Scrutiny was a painful thing, but it would be hypocritical of him to spurn their blemishing eyes when he liked to observe in much worse ways. They might not even know the reaction it had on him, feeding into his paranoia, strengthening the magic of his hoard, amplifying his own.

Jon wasn’t too strong on his own. Prone to headaches whenever he tried to know and see too much. Even more prone to the dangerous kind of paranoia that told him to watch his back whenever the assistants Elias hired for him were incompatible with his work and would rather have him hunted and killed. But he liked these three. He liked to stare at them, nestled in his archive, working away on their projects, safe in his hoard and even outside of it as they gathered their materials. Their (or at least Sasha’s incredibly eager) willingness to know made him happy. He tried not to watch, most of the time, out of courtesy for his human co-workers who did not understand that to be a part of a Beholding’s hoard was to be watched, but he was a weak creature, unable to help himself sometimes.

Without a hoard or family or circle of dragons he would be weakened. But if his assistants allowed him to watch, and he allowed them to watch back just as eager, barraging him with just as many questions – the magic in those interactions sang to him sweeter than the written statements he devoured to survive.

However, they were humans, ignorant to Beholding customs, and Jon didn’t want to pull them into dragon business they had no understanding of. Besides, Jon never played well with others as a child. He had to stop whatever they were doing at some point.

Worst of all was Martin. Once upon a time, he started insisting his tea upon Jon, and after long debates with himself over accepting human drinks, accompanied by the gentle pressure of Martin’s hands forcing his cups on top of Jon’s desks, he started drinking it.

Now, whenever Martin gave him his tea, he looked at Jon as if it was medicine. ‘Please, Jon. Drink this and you’ll feel better. Please, Jon. If you don’t drink this, you’ll die. For the sake of us both, Jon, dump this tea down your throat. I’ll be back with more.’

“If there’s anything else you need, I’ll be here,” Martin said, his hand soft on Jon’s jaw. At that point, Jon had tried to coax Martin out of his office, feeling entirely too touched and worried over during what he thought was just a regular workday. Good lord, it was like a curse had been lifted and Martin was finally allowed to give Jon his head scratches. Well, in your own time, Martin.

… and during their little breaks.

Martin had that worrying look in his eyes again as he found Jon in document storage swatting at a big fat spider in the corner of the ceiling.

Jon’s trousers were dusty, his shirt disrupted in his haste to find a broomstick. He clutched the chair for balance, tentatively reaching up at the glistening web with the bristly end of his weapon. He didn’t know what he would do if it fell down and touched his skin, but he didn’t think the rest of the Institute would find screams coming from the archives all that out of the ordinary. Especially when they came from Jonathan Sims.

“Oh, that’s a big one.”

Jon nearly toppled over. Martin appeared next to him, looking up at the ceiling.

“Giant house spider,” he continued.

“I’m well aware of how big it is,” Jon shot back a tad too harshly before it dawned on him Martin meant the species. Not meeting his eyes, Jon regained his hold on the broomstick and fixed his attention on the spider. He wouldn’t let it disappear because he was distracted. “There’s enough misery for them to feed on here. Gorging themselves, puppeteering unknowing humans into their sickly webs without any struggle. Bulbous monsters with shiny hides and peering eyes. Disgusting manipulators of –”

“A-alright, Jon. I got it.”

Jon’s voice worked somewhat like a spell, low and insistent, unable to stop once he got going. Martin peered at him, pale with worry in that way that made it look like he pitied Jon – not the greatest feeling. Though Jon’s intent wasn’t to make his assistant uncomfortable, he felt a little bit justified in his fear mongering, but if Martin couldn’t easily pull himself away from Jon’s ominous string of sentences without moaning out the first word to intercept him, it was his duty as Head Archivist to stop when told.

“You want me to, uhm,” Martin continued, making a gesture with his hands, like holding–

“No.” Jon flinched away from him. “You are _not_ going to lift me up.” He wouldn’t give the Spider that satisfaction.

“Ah, no. Not you. I wouldn’t,” Martin blushed, “Not when you’re– I meant the spider. Let me take it outside.”

Right. He was human at the moment. Humans typically didn’t lift humans.

“It’s a bad omen,” Jon warned him.

“Well, in that case,” Martin quipped, “If you kill it, it could come back as a ghost, which means we’ll never get rid of it.”

Jon frowned and nodded, remembering the Vittery statement. Martin had a point, although he smiled like he hadn’t taken his own words seriously at all. As if being haunted by spiders wasn’t all that bad.

“I don’t want it to leave its web on you.”

This, Martin didn’t seem to properly understand, frowning as he worked over what Jon said. Perhaps it was the urgency that eluded him. “You can check me later? Uhm, can’t you?”

With his dragon eyes uncovered, he could, so Jon agreed Martin could take care of the spider.

Martin stood on the chair to cup his hands around the massive creature, telling Jon the reason he came to look for him was because Rosie had a package for him, so Jon went away, parting from Martin and the tiny terror.

\---

“Is this one of those deliveries you _say_ you want in artefact storage but actually you’d rather have it damaged or destroyed or can I trust you with this one?” Rosie said, her face just as casual as it always was when Jon got in trouble.

“I’ll have to see what it is first, don’t I?” Jon replied, slipping the little brown package into his coat. Some months back he had dragged a long, young, spindly I Do Not Know You out of a table with his teeth after which he ate it. Sonja hadn’t known about the hidden dragon within and never would, but gave him a scolding nonetheless when she found the table scratched up. This happened after the weekend, which meant Jon was the single logical perpetrator, having unlimited access to- and observance of the archives.

There were items he wasn’t allowed to touch, and which Sonja and her assistants chased him away from if they got the chance, but the ones delivered to the Institute with intent he didn’t like to leave unattended. Some, he couldn’t destroy, like the casket filled with dirt from the burial ground he had dug Daisy out of. Some, he didn’t want to destroy at all, no matter how much his conscience bore down on him. When a Spiral vase was delivered to the archives Jon could not bring himself to scratch his talons into the porcelain to break through the intricate fractals of the blue. It would destroy the history of its fears which lay heavy and costly like gold on his tongue. Jon was too weak for that.

But dragons hiding in artefacts which could jump out at his or storage’s assistants and kill them, those he had no qualms about getting rid of. He had seniority, so whatever Jon wanted to do with his archive, Sonja and Rosie had to suck it up.

“Who was the sender?” Jon asked Rosie, his hand resting against the sturdy package in his coat pocket. “I couldn’t read an address.”

Rosie didn’t check her list, “Oh, no sender. She hand-delivered it. I think it’s a personal package for you. Said her name was Annabelle Cane?”

His brain did something funny, then.

“Oh.” Jon stilled. His hand wrapped firmly around the package, as if releasing it would make the world spin even further. “Did she say that?”

Rosie frowned. “Yeah? Quite clearly, actually; really enunciated it. Why? Is there- Jon, you alright? You don’t look so well. Hold on, I’ll–”

Before she could shimmy out of her cubicle and help him steady his footing, Jon airily said, “No, I’ll be alright. I-I have to– Thank you, I have to go,” and he turned around, hurrying back towards the archive on shaking legs with his heart stammering in his chest.

“God, what a weirdo,” Rosie said halfway out of her chair, watching him go.

\---

Jon couldn’t see any threads. This meant nothing, because his coat dulled his eyes almost to the point of uselessness, and the Web was already as insidious as could be, which was exactly the reason why he kept the package in his pocket, encapsulated by Watcher’s scales so that its strands wouldn’t jump free and attach themselves like mould to his archive. If they hadn’t already.

None he could see.

None he could see.

None he could see, though that didn’t mean they weren’t there, but he had to make sure his assistants were safe first, so he clutched their shirts and stared into their eyes, took their hands in his and tried to see into the groves of their skin if the Web had laid their strings into the fine lines and pulled their hooks through–

“Jon!”

He snarled, his non-existent hackles raised because he couldn’t see anything, but that meant nothing if his eyes were dull, so he pressed his fingers into their soft corners despite the hands on his wrist pulling them away.

“Jon! Breathe!” Martin said something to him, unimportant because Jon had to take his coat off first to properly see.

“I have to – I can’t be human,” he said, struggling in Martin’s grip. He coiled his body like it hurt him, turned towards the shelves of his archive halfway out of his trousers before the coat slipped off his shoulders. His talons clutched at the shirt he still wore while he cursed himself for the human clothes blocking his eyes as he pulled and tore it off of him with a roar.

He groaned as the web he was sure to see covering his entire hoard from top to bottom trapping them within _still_ didn’t appear, and he was only vaguely aware of Martin jumping away from him accompanied by the other two whose bodies were also free of strings, which calmed him down a little bit because that meant the answers were to be found somewhere in his archive. Looking too hard into the ocean of knowing outside the Institute made his head throb, too far from the sky where he belonged and too deep below the ground, so he spread his wings far and wide to try and see more, even as his eyes burned. At that, Tim cursed loudly which made him lower his serpentine body onto the floor in shame but not shut any of his eyes as he tried to Know why the hell Annabelle Cane visited him in the Institute. Jon’s wings gave him Annabelle’s mouthpiece, frightened as the Spider sent her off towards the magic research Institute with a present for another dragon that lurked within its archive, created when her head split open and Annabelle sewed it shut with her sharp talons to do her bidding. The package, laced with web he could easily tear through sat safely within his coat, unopened which he was going to make sure remained so because if he did open it, it meant that she had won.

Jon was silent as his documents pertaining to the Mother flew around him like trapped birds. But his head hurt, and he couldn’t see, because the package was only meant for him. Nothing more. And he was stuck, only looking in on himself. Statements of the Web he already read long ago filled his mind accompanied by useless puppeteering magic used by humans with no relation to the Mothers that granted them this magic, every bit of information already known to him and every piece of web already eaten by him to prevent the spreading like mould, and everything useless when all he wanted to know was why Annabelle came to him after all these years. All of it flashed by, his wings quivering, his eyes wide, his body rigid as he soaked up the magic he already knew intricately.

And then he saw nothing at all as dark glasses entered his view, and like thunder struck him out of a daze, his breath started with shuddering gasps.

“Boss. Breathe,” said Tim after a litany of curses, his hands not outstretched as if to calm him, but crouching down on the floor to make himself small, nonthreatening. His eyes were dark, hidden by two black blurs. Jon focussed on that, the holes in reality that sucked him in like a good mystery to solve, lost in the nothingness. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Tim breathed, his mouth curled up in a wince.

“Insidious arachnids. What’s the point of a hoard when I can’t–” Jon was aware that what he said didn’t sound human, the growls of his draconic throat unintelligible to human ears. Tim took this as a warning and backed off from him. Jon licked his lips at his fear, savouring it like he had done once already, but averted his eyes towards something different, unwilling to feed off the fear of his hoard, especially when that fear couldn’t be reached that far into the depths. With his eyes averted from Tim’s dark glasses, he saw his archive in a mess, and with the palpitations of his heart a rush of anger rose up in him, knowing he’d have to sort it again.

“Jon. Can I touch you?” Tim said, his hand outstretched now towards Jon’s shaking body. “You need to calm down.”

“No. I can’t. She was _here_ and she–” Jon was aware that he was hyperventilating, his breath coming out in short rapid breaths as he swivelled his head around his hoard, a low draconic whine in his voice he couldn’t suppress but which sounded too weak under the scrutiny of his assistants.

“Martin, help me,” Tim said, his hands hovering unsure like he was trying to lure Jon closer while trying to back away without making a move.

Martin stepped forward, careful not to step onto any documents and recorders which Jon kept his eyes out for as the man approached him. With the way they stood, the both of them blocked his way towards the entrance, along with Sasha standing in the door opening. He was sure he could fight them off if he had to, but he rather didn’t, because his teeth were sharp and they were soft and without scales, despite belonging to his tower of Beholding, so he stood frozen in place and flared his wings.

Martin stumbled backwards at this. “O-ohh okay, okay. Not coming closer. Tim?”

“Right. Not coming closer, boss. We just want to help.”

Just wanted to help. Just wanted to help. Just wanted to help.

“You’ve been watching me.” Jon forced his legs to move, nearly bouncing away with adrenaline. “This week– I was wondering why, but now with Annabelle, I–”

Was she keeping tabs on him with his assistants as well?

Martin frowned, now sat on the floor alongside Tim, eye level with Jon, “Who’s Annabelle?”

Martin said this so genuine, like he really didn’t know. Jon eyed him for the hundredth time, seeing no webs hang from his shoulders, his eyes were as clear as they ever were. Jon had seen her puppets. He knew what they looked like, their heads split open and woven over like lace ornament: her calling card. He would know. Jon had assured Martin that he would know.

“Is that why you’re like this?” Tim asked. “It’s alright. There’s no one here but us, Jon.”

Jon let out a distressed whine. He believed them. She had gone, taking her puppet and all the strands that came attached to the woman with her. Martin reached out, his eyes wild with worry, and Jon allowed him to support his scaly chin in his palm, warm and solid under him.

Tim’s sturdy hand was on his heaving breast, like he could calm him down with his gentle human weight alone. His other arm slumped around his shoulders, and before he could struggle Jon sat encapsulated by his two assistants, body shaking in their grasp.

“Deep breaths, Jon.” Tim's hand moved with the rise and fall of his chest. Jon did as he said, breathing heavily through his nostrils, too upset with the outside world and its inhabitants to resist Tim’s arms around his body, embracing him in the smell of his hoard. Tim’s persistent dark glasses made his eyes shut too, all of them except for a few that twitched uncertainly. “That’s good. Breathe in. Hold. And out. Looooong breaths. There we go.”

Jon followed the pace of Tim’s hand. His breath hitched in his lungs when it felt like he missed a beat but it eventually evened out into a steady rythm. His legs felt weak, and he was glad for Martin’s supporting hands because without them he would surely collapse onto the floor. Instead, he slowly sank down on his legs, comfortable with their scent on him. His hoard engulving him. Safe at least.

“No more spiders, Jon.” Martin’s hand was solid around his snout. Keeping his maw closed, no doubt. He groaned at the mention of spiders. They shouldn’t have to worry about them at all. The Web was _his_ problem. _His_ to deal with. Not his assistants’.

"No more Spiders," he promised.

At some point, Sasha had come to stand by them with a case file in her hand, her big brown eyes gentle and patient.

“I’ve got a statement for you, Jon, when you feel up for it. I know they calm you down.”

Martin petted him gently, and Jon nodded through the motions.

“Thank you.”

He wasn’t relaxed, necessarily, but the heat from moments before slipped away, his mind clearer even with his wings furled up along his back.

“So, what was that freak-out? What happened?” Sasha placed the file on a nearby shelf before lowering herself onto the floor to sit with them.

“Freak out?”

Their faces were set like stone and stern. They must’ve been terrified to suddenly see him transform like that, using his power without any regard for their _humanity_.

“You had a panic attack.” Tim said this as if it was rather obvious.

“I-I did? I was just making sure.”

“Making sure that we don’t have any webs on us,” Martin said. He stilled his hands.

“Yes. That you weren’t controlled. And you're not.” He would have snapped the threads between his fangs, or tried to at least. This should be consoling to them, but instead they stared at him a bit weirdly.

“You looked at us like we were the enemy,” Sasha said softly. She had her legs crossed, and her long arms draped over her knees.

Jon closed his eyes in shame. His assistants were scared. Not just of him, but _for_ him. God, only now did he remember their faces when he burst out of his human form – it was embarrassing how quickly he forgot to take their feelings into consideration. He once told Martin that he would protect them if a Spider ever got to them. Instead, he was the one who had to be comforted, scared that even his own powers wouldn’t be enough to recognize a Spider. But it had. He could see them when he wanted to. He was strong enough. He knew this, and yet all that bravado fell away when faced with the real thing.

“I’m sorry to have scared you like this.” With his heartbeat back to normal, he nosed Tim and Martin's hands away from him. He shouldn't allow their affection, not with how weird he'd behaved. His assistant stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. “I didn’t think she would actually send someone to the Institute. We haven’t properly spoken since we were children, and I always assumed that if she were spying on me, it’d be by actual spider. I had to be certain she hadn't caught you as well.”

“This… Annabelle,” Martin started, his expression grave, “She was actually here?”

“In the Institute, yes. I mean – somewhat. A representative, one with more will and fears than a simple arachnid. I guess to taunt me, make me complicit in her feeding, make me, uhm…” He didn’t want to say it, because he used the same word to describe how his assistants had made him feel these past couple of days. They wouldn't understand what it meant to him. “Paranoid.”

Paranoia was what spurred him into action, fed his fears as much as he fed on them. Dangerous, volatile, but the magic of eyes tingled his skin like a cloak, not exactly safe under it, but comfortable. It wasn’t something he could explain to humans. All that was negative to humans made Jon only grow in his power. A dragon could not be raised without fear.

“No actual dragon then?” Sasha said.

“No.” Jon knew her when they were small. An eight limbed reptile; two pairs of hooked wings and two pairs of clever talons that had strung him along on adventures. “I can only imagine what she looks like now, fully grown after two hundred years.”

They always balked a little when Jon spoke about his age. He’d seen so much more than they ever could, came from a world where humans were a supply instead of equals. Jon was their only willingly vocal source on dragons, the rest merely the statements and reports left behind by ignorant humans, or pests that ate rats in the walls and corpses in graveyards, unwilling to make themselves known to humans. They couldn’t begin to imagine what Annabelle might look like. Jon had no idea either, but he could hazard a very good guess.

“From one thing into the next,” Tim breathed.

“I’m sorry.” He really was.

“Don’t apologize. We’re the ones deciding to stay,” Sasha said. A strange look passed her face, pensive and hesitant. “But you…”

When she said this, his assistants shared a glance with each other. They shifted uncomfortably, avoiding Jon’s puzzled look.

He cocked his head when she didn’t elaborate. “ **What**?”

Without meaning to, the compulsion casually burst out of him.

Unfortunately for Sasha, it burst out of her as well.

She took a deep breath before she began to speak, “It’s just, we worry about you, Jon. You can’t leave the Institute, you hardly eat, you’re terrified of I guess being brainwashed by Web dragons, and when we first met you were terrified we’d hate you for being yourself. Are you even remotely alright?”

Sasha’s eyes went wide, her hand slapping to her mouth, confused about why she blurted this out. “Wait, what?”

Tim and Martin looked at her in shock, like she spilled a secret they promised to keep together – which Jon realised was exactly what happened.

Jon, however, looked at Sasha like she’d grown a second head. “You’ve been watching me because you were worried. But–” He shook his head, forcing more compulsion out of his brain. “I can assure you, I’m fine.”

“Even if you can’t fly?” Martin looked at him with disbelieve.

“A small price to pay for Elias’ protection, yes.”

No, that was a lie. It was the ultimate price for a Watcher like him. In the sky, he saw the world. Without it, he was strung along by whatever story enticed him the most.

But they worried so much already, so they didn’t have to understand this.

“So, Elias locked you up?”

Jon snorted at the bluntness of that question, the lack of depth it had. “No. That’s not really how it– Look, I asked him myself. Elias is very powerful, but he’s not keeping me here against my will.”

By the looks of it, they were highly doubtful of that.

“I’m not!” Jon shot back, childishly.

“Is he a Beholding too?” Martin said, making himself small. 

At this, all of their eyes fixed on Jon. He shifted under their gaze. He didn’t want to talk about him. It wasn’t right, spilling another’s secret, even if Elias wasn’t fully dragon.

“I shouldn’t say.”

Martin gasped and glanced over his shoulder then, as if Elias might walk through the door like the devil at the mention of his own name. He wasn’t in the Institute, gone on a ‘business trip’ for a couple of days now, but would return soon enough. He had come down into the archives to tell all of them himself, as if he would be dearly missed.

When Martin didn’t see him magically appearing in the doorway, he turned to Jon, “Will he know if we talk about him?”

“He’s not omnipotent, Martin.”

Jon looked down, tracing a grove in the wooden floorboard with his black nail as he thought about how much he could tell them, his head swimming. It was a difficult topic to breach, even with the hoard he had just started to trust. It wasn’t what he typically did with his assistants, reveal so much. Only Eric and Helen knew what Elias, or Jonah was, and there was never a need to tell with others who simply came to the archives to work. But Martin, Sasha and Tim felt right in his archive, good. Secrets hurt their group, and his Beholding instincts always had to fight him over how much gruelling knowledge he should keep from them, wanting to share it all with his hoard. Whatever they felt ready to know, they would ask. And now they had.

Jon supposed he could reveal some of his relationship with the man, if it eased their worries.

“I’m the Archivist; I feed him information. That was our deal when I first came to work for him.”

“And what did you get in return?”

That seemed rather obvious to Jon, “I got the archives. My hoard.”

"And Elias simply helped you..." They waited in anticipation for him to explain.

Jon couldn't supress a frustrated sigh before he started, “The hoard is mine. It keeps me safe. Safe from other dragons trying to get under my skin, literally and figuratively. And it keeps me fed. I won’t have to go out hunting and… and potentially harm humans while I feed.”

Tim with his arms crossed and leaning against a bookshelf, seemed to understand this at least. Martin and Sasha weren't convinced, which became increasingly more annoying the longer they sat here asking obvious questions. There was something about it that nagged at him. His tense muscles didn't help either.

Martin bit his lip. “So… It doesn’t have anything to do with the Web?”

Jon fixed his gaze on Martin. The headache throbbed back to attention. “You think she’s keeping me here.”

Eyes wide, Martin realized his mistake. “Not anymore!”

Jon stood up and paced around, his sharp feet crumpling not a single statement littering the floor. “It’s not the Web,” he growled. “It’s not the Web. It’s me. I did this.”

He started picking up documents, ordering scattered files and placing them back in their folders.

“Jon?” they all said in various stages of worry, but he didn’t react. If he stopped picking up after himself, he was worried he would blow a fuse.

“It’s my hoard. I’m the one who did this. Not the Web. Me. Not Elias. Elias helps me. It wasn’t the Web. It was me.”

“Jon,” Sasha said tiredly, standing up and trying to help him by picking up the files. He snarled at her but made no move to take the papers out of her hands. She stood back, “We get it. This is your home.”

It was more than his home. It was all he was.

“Get out,” Jon growled. A proper growl, one that sent human skin shivering. Martin and Tim stood up, not wanting to test his patience all that much.

“I don’t think the deal you made is all that fair.” There was a warning in Sasha’s voice, stronger than the common spat they had whenever they disagreed over languages or statements or origins of sources they studied. “I don’t think staying in the Institute is as healthy as you think it is.”

“We want to help,” Martin supplied, whose gentle voice only made him angrier. Jon didn’t need his pity. He had freaked out in front of them over something that hadn’t done them any harm at all, completely embarrassing himself in the process, and now his assistants started questioning whether or not his hoard was safe for him. He didn’t need this. Not today.

“I don’t need your help,” he shot back, his eyes fierce and his lips unfurling from his teeth. He clutched the stack of papers to his chest like armour, or like the pillow he would use later to sleep off his dazed head. “I need you to go home.”

They looked hurt at his words, which he understood, but he couldn’t take back his words now. All he could do was drop to the floor, his fears in hand, crouching low on the ground as they stood in front of him, like they were trapped in a room without exit. Though, that meant he was the monster in it, wasn’t he? But they were the ones who refused to leave.

“Jon, I-I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Martin told him unhelpfully.

“My hoard is my business. It wasn’t the Web.”

“So you’ve said.” Tim eyed him with contempt, or at least what he thought was contempt as Tim’s eyes were still protected by his sunglasses. “And it wasn’t Elias.”

At the mention of his hoard’s Head, Jon’s head started to hurt again. Why did they probe so much?

Jon’s eyes were piercing but did not want to look into the dark depths of Tim’s glasses, and averted his gaze towards the floor, his wings flaring for them to back off. “It wasn’t Elias,” he said to the ground, his head circling over the wood like a magnet trying to find its way back. He growled one more time, “Go away.”

“What wasn’t me?”

Right at that moment, Elias’ placid grin poked into the archives, fresh from his tousle with the Lonely dragon. Jon’s head snapped up at him.

“ **Where were you**?” Jon said, his voice low and strong with compulsion.

To Martin, who was already quite confused by today’s mood swings, Jon looked ready to tear Elias’ throat out when he appeared in the doorway. The air was silent, like all the tension from a moment before had gathered around Elias, soaking up the attention of his sudden appearance. ‘Like magic’, Martin would almost say, if that didn’t sound far too charming. Elias strode into the archive like a bull.

“You know where I was,” Elias answered Jon with a chipper voice. 

Jon didn’t look pleased, “And while you left the Institute, the Web crawled it’s way in.”

Elias seemed to take this in stride, casually avoiding the assistants and walking towards the cowering Jon.

“How unlucky. I seemed to have missed it. Just when I was out of town, which I’m sure is no coincidence.” He knelt down next to Jon, one arm on his bent knee while Jon hunched his shoulders like raised hackles. “Good grief– Jon, I am here. Calm yourself.”

And as if Elias cast out a spell, Jon did. As Elias spoke, the tension in his wings fell away and he lowered his head like a tired dog. Elias touched the base of his neck, and Jon leaned not necessarily into the hand on his shoulder, but in a way that suggested he was about to fall asleep soon. Martin watched with silent terror as Elias made Jon pliant. His eyelids drooped, his wings folded back up, and he slowly sank his belly onto the floor, his paws nestling the stack of paper he held under him.

“You must tell me what happened later,” Elias continued, stroking Jon’s long neck.

“Yes,” Jon replied. He was halfway in sleep.

As Elias stood up, Jon’s eyes were fully closed, his chest slowly rising and falling.

Elias struck an imposing figure then, turned towards the assistants in his pressed suit looking more like he’d come out of a fight than truly embarrassingly crumpled, his hands clasping behind his back, his eyes a near glowing green.

“What did you do to him?” This was Sasha, confusion and anger lacing her voice.

“He’s asleep and will be fine once he wakes up. It might be wise if we don’t make any more mentions of spiders, hm?" He said this far too jovially. A man who assumed his presence would steer everyone towards him with his word, and to a certain degree, Martin believed him.

Martin wasn’t familiar with evil. He had actively tried to avoid magic all his life and didn’t like to watch the news when it got too gruesome. Even with Jane Prentiss, he’d only caught a glimpse of what one might call "evil" as she fought Jon and planned to destroy his archives utterly. But she was nothing more than chaos.

Elias exuded malice.

Even as he helped Jon, Martin could feel there was something not right about it, though logically he should be grateful Elias brought Jon out of his meltdown. The ease with which Jon calmed down when he had been so furious just a moment before, the way Elias’ hand clasped around the scales on his neck, his thumb like the buckle of a collar on his throat. It seemed calculated, and Jon seemed acclimated to it with how quickly he accepted Elias’ touch. Like a dragon-whisperer forcing docility. Elias stood straight with a smile that couldn't possibly belong to someone with fair intentions.

As Elias walked out of the archives, bidding them farewell and warning, Martin shared a glance with his co-workers, each of them concluding the same.

It wasn’t the Web.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make Annabelle ('s puppet woman) actually appear, but when I wrote it out it felt just like a rehash of Helen without any actual new personality. A random package left behind which everyone immediately forgets about seems more the Web's style.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A soft conclusion involving families.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this chapter in my head for 6 months now, and it took me one and a half month to write in between my internship. it's not perfect, its very full of all sorts of things, and im pretty sure there's some mixed metaphors. But I hope it's cute... so please enjoy. and thank you everyone for reading! I think we're almost at 100k.... good grief.

Jon did not want them back into his archive the next day. He’d overreacted, made a fool of himself shaking his wings and opening his eyes trying to catch the light glinting on web where there was none to be found. Right in front of his assistants. And later Elias, who inadvertently had to calm him down as Head of the hoard as if he were a wild monster to be tamed, caged like an animal in front of his assistants, docile under Elias’ hand.

That afternoon he sent them a formal apology, formulated as best as he could with as much emotional distance as he could muster, requesting that the three of them take the following day off.

Poor Martin got the worst of it. Jon had torn his clothes off right in front of him, and Martin must’ve gotten a good view of his indecency from where he stood. The memory made Jon snarl with embarrassment and claw at his back as he imagined the scene from Martin’s perspective, watching Jon’s naked fleshy body spring free of his trousers, see his boss cowering under his own fear as he carelessly spread his wings. Martin had not deserved that. By human standards, Jon hadn’t behaved. A human boss would not have done something like this in front of his co-workers. Any other boss would not have put himself to shame like that.

When Martin sent him a short message back saying that he nothing to apologize for, Jon’s chest felt like it was about to tear.

That evening he curled his talons into a bookshelf, chest firmly planted against his tomes, and his serpentine body wrapped around his hoard in an effort to calm his lingering nerves. He let out a long exhale through his nostrils.

But as Jon prepared to wallow in his self-pity, his ears picked up a familiar creak.

“May I come in?” Helen said conversationally.

He would’ve grunted at her, let a little growl slip through to ward her off, but in truth he felt so pathetic that he doubted Helen would listen to his warning anyway, if she ever had ever cared to at all. Her smiling face poked through the door. 

“I brought a snack,” her voice sang as if she wanted to lure him closer, her body like a praying mantis.

Fantastic. More human lives to worry about. This time, Jon did growl, and as he rolled over the tip of his tail thumped agitated against the wooden shelf. Despite his exertion and his hunger, the last thing he needed was humans in his hoard.

From Helen’s hallway, faint rustling could be heard, like someone was pacing on carpet, and the distinct smell of human made Jon’s chest thrum.

Helen didn't wait for an answer as she snaked in, her gait languid as she made her way over to the bookshelf, of which she was about the same height. Jon kept one slitted eye on Helen until her long, spindly fingers came up to where he rested, like spider feet carefully inching towards him.

“Rough day?” Nothing about her tone of voice conveyed empathy as her nails teased the scales around his mouth, and he snapped half-heartedly at them with his fangs.

“I assume you’ve been watching the show,” Jon shot back bitterly.

“It’s only polite! I’m still affiliated with your tower of Beholdings, am I not? Of course, I’ll take a peak when I’m allowed to.”

Jon couldn’t deny Helen her place.

“So, you’re simply checking in on me. Is that it?” Jon scoffed, not willing to openly admit his affection for her as she had for him.

“Of course! All that embarrassment – how can I resist? It nurtures my skin.”

Before Jon could snap back at her, she assaulted him with her nails, instigating a fight that Jon eagerly accepted. Jon snapped at her sharp hands, which he didn’t want anywhere near his face, and Helen taunted him just out of reach despite his long neck. After he lashed out particularly fierce, Helen allowed his sharp fangs to clasp around her fingers, ending their scuffle, her bones creaking between his molars as he bit down. She was unharmed of course, since her body wasn’t real, but a childish part of him did feel a tad better when she admitted defeat and stopped trying to poke him.

Thrilled with Helen’s defeat, Jon resumed his poised position atop the shelf, his head held high and chest puffed out. He knew their playfighting was fake, but winning gave him back a little bit of his pride. Feigned that he was more in control of himself. Like he actually conquered something.

He clasped his arms and claws around a thick book, watching Helen with slitted eyes. Elongating into a snake, she inched up the bookshelf. Now small, she could easily nestle herself against his beating chest.

“Always soooo worried what others think of you,” she purred against him.

“I’ve got to set an example.”

“For whom!? They’re just humans! Who cares what they think! You know your hoard is good. Humans are fools to question it.”

Her words were harsh and made him wince, but she was right in that Jon didn’t always owe his assistants an explanation.

“You like humans too,” Jon said defiantly.

“Only a little,” she admitted. “I guess I like watching them run around doing their silly little human things. Just like you do. Ah! We ought to have a proper fight. See how you’ll feel at the end of that. Give your humans a good show.”

Seeing no sense in arguing this topic with her, Jon sank his head onto the shelf, sighing deeply against her small form as she slithered over his knuckles. Helen coiled around him, flicking her forked tongue at his breath, no doubt tasting his misery.

“Why did she come here?”

“Perhaps it’s because you make it so easy. Look at how you reacted, jumping off the hook not just once, but twice in one afternoon. You’re too delectable. So afraid of anything, soaking it up. And I’ll say even now I can practically taste the fear on you-” She made a humming sound like a purr, her mouth widening and her throat pulsing, sending shivers over Jon’s spine all the way to the tips of his wings. “-Like a snack. I don’t blame Annabelle for licking you if you’ll excuse the analogy.”

Jon did not excuse the analogy, and he did not like the idea of Annabelle feeding off his fears when they hadn’t seen each other in centuries.

“You sure you don’t want one of the guys I’ve got in my hallway? They’re very simple. No spiders at all. Think of it as comfort food.”

“No,” Jon replied pointedly. He didn’t want live statements if he could help it. No matter how much his stomach churned at the idea; his panic had worn him out, and he felt the eyes in his wings coil behind closed lids. “I’m not a hatchling that needs to be fed.”

“Even adults need a little coddling from time to time,” she shot back. She bumped her nose against his. “Even someone as bloody stubborn as you.”

“And you?” Jon replied, nuzzling her far too affectionately in kind.

“I will tear you to shreds if you try! Oh, but I’ll give you a big hug when you reach me, darling. It’s the least I can do before I swallow you whole.”

“You’re horrible.”

“Old news!”

Even as horrible as she was, she made him forget about what happened, his embarrassment and the guilt of carelessly opening his eyes around his assistants. To Helen, humans were simple creatures meant to be observed and eaten, and she did not dwell on the breach of their social rules. Jon had acted like a maniac in front of his humans, which was funny to her because it was baseless, seeing as no Spider had done any harm, and even Jon had to admit that in terms of atrocities he’d committed, the things he had done today, while embarrassing, were pretty low on the list, considering he’d done it to protect his hoard. To Helen, it was none of any human’s business what Jon’s reactions had been. Helen was far too separated from humanity to care for their opinion. Dragons stood above humans. ‘That’s why we were given wings, and humans all the squishy parts’.

Helen still had a place in his hoard, even when she had never contributed much of worth. Where Jon sought the truth, she bent reality and lied. Still, he’d grown accustomed to her presence over the years, and he had missed her small serpentine body against his. It did not matter who belonged in his hoard. Watchers, Spiral, human: they all complemented his need to watch and know and understand.

She released Jon of his bad thoughts, at least for a little while, curling his unwanted memories away as she owned up to her rightful place in his hoard.

Well, Helen and _Hounds of Love (1985)_ blasted at full volume through the archive.

\--

“No dragon Jon today either?”

Sasha came to stand next to Jon as he scanned police reports and watched the light flare up from under the hood. Her tone was light as ever, as if Jon was allowed to refuse conversation. Jon decided he’d avoided them enough over the past week and granted Sasha a scant glance.

He’d wanted to give them their space, just like he had upon the start of their employment when his fantastical nature had been of little consequence still. It was the most sensible course of action, in his opinion. He often wondered if Elias hadn’t been right about not telling them, and only jeopardized his own comfort when he could have pretended to be human alongside the others.

“No,” Jon replied. “I think it’s best if I lay low for a while. I’ve embarrassed myself enough this week.”

“Jon, you’re not embarrassing,” Sasha said, as if it wasn’t the objective truth. “You just had a bad reaction to something you’ve got history with. We already said we want to see you as you are. And get used to what you are. That includes the parts that aren’t as pretty.”

“I suppose that means you find some parts of me pretty,” he quipped.

“I mean it.”

This forced Jon’s eyes to lock with hers. He found a familiar look in them. One he fought regularly because arguments with Sasha were somewhat of a guilty pleasure. Now didn’t seem like a good time for a good-natured discussion though, and Jon hung his head, gathering his files from the scanner.

They wanted to get to know him. Jon knew this already. It was hypocritical of him to disregard their wonder because he did the exact same thing to humans. Watching them, seeing their fears without enacting judgement, every uncomfortable part of themselves on display. Sasha on the other hand was human and did not take pleasure in seeing Jon’s fears laid bare. Sasha was kind and curious, simply wanting to understand.

Jon faltered at her sincerity but couldn’t help but smile a little at her words. “Thank you.”

“I’m also sorry I brought up the, uhm – you know. The Elias thing. I really didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. But… I’ve got a feeling you had something to do with that too, didn’t you?”

He had compelled her, she meant. Another error that made him cringe. Guiltily, he admitted, “I can make people tell me things. I uhm- I’m sorry I used it on you.”

“I suspected as much. Felt weird, though. Like a string pulled taught. Only I was the string.”

Jon nodded gravely.

“Whatever,” she continued. “I’ll add it to the list.” When Jon gave her a panicked look she hurriedly added, “for posterity! I’m joking. Your powers. You’ve got a lot of them.”

“Oh,” Jon said dumbly. “Yes.” Of course Sasha didn’t keep a record of all his wrongdoings against humanity.

She shrugged it off. “Anyway, it’s fine. It hurt you more than me, anyhow. Though, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that anymore.”

“Of course,” he assured her immediately, locking eyes with her to show his sincerity, because he never intended to use his powers on his humans in the first place. She nodded, seemingly accepting his faults as little more than a slip-up.

He thought of all the words exchanged between them that day. His anger at them for implying Elias kept him locked up, as if Jon could not be trusted to make his own decisions. Their notion that he might be terrified of being hated for what he was. He had been a bit angry at them, but their unintended insults had only come from a place of worry.

“I am not uncomfortable with who I am,” Jon said. It was important that she understood that. “I’m two hundred years old. It’s a bit late for that.”

“Okay.” Her voice was hesitant. “I’m not uncomfortable with who you are either.”

“You really should be, though,” Jon muttered.

“Okaaaaay.” This made her grin and roll her eyes. “Do you want me to run out the Institute screaming about dragons or something? I know there’s like, real evil in the world or whatever. I read the statements too. Not all magic is good and fair. But god. Stop it with the pity party already, will you? You’re a dragon. Do you know how cool that is?”

“Oh. Uhm. No,” Jon said decidedly. “I don’t think I was very ‘cool’ the other day.”

“Okay, like, I get that, but Jon, I sincerely wish we could trade bodies because if I could just eat bugs all day and fly I would never want to work a day in my life ever again.”

She had a point there. “W-well, it beats having to fight others for territory.”

“What are you even talking about? Jane Prentiss just waltzed in. And remember when Helen kidnapped me?”

“I got you back!”

“But you’d be willing to fight for me? Tooth and nail and all that?”

“Naturally!”

Sasha smirked, lifting the hood of the scanner and switching out Jon’s files for hers. She handed them to a perplexed Jon, whose cheeks darkened at having admitted he would claw his way through a dragon to save Sasha from whatever hypothetical misfortune might overcome her. She seemed more than satisfied with that answer, and whatever strange tension between them had built this last week dispelled.

“That’s kind of hot.”

She took off. Stumped, Jon took a moment before he, too, went to do his own tasks, feeling elated for the first time in days, rather confused, and warm and prickly in his chest.

* * *

It was an unofficial rule that every new artefact acquisition had a chance of being run by Jonathan Sims first. Sonja hated this, as it completely undermined her authority. But, Jon was the head archivist with way more years under his belt than she initially assumed, ruling over the Institute’s collection with an almost iron fist, and Sonja was honestly more scared of Mr Bouchard to refute any of Jon’s orders. Sonja knew how to fight monsters. She wasn’t scared of the guttural noises made by whatever beast Jon kept in the archive. But Mr Bouchard was a different creature all together. He had those CEO vibes.

Didn’t mean she couldn’t fight Jonathan whenever he made his ridiculous demands, though. But it helped that occasionally, his much lovelier assistants tagged along to smooth things over.

“Hiiiii, Sonjaaaa,” Handsome Tim drawled, and she could almost forgive the sour face of the Archivist slouching after him.

The scars on Tim’s face did nothing to diminish his charms. Nobody knew exactly what had gone down the day Jane Prentiss showed up in the archive, but it had left the conventionally attractive Tim blessedly rugged. In fact, he looked like a proper dragon fighter with the pockmarked scars, assuming that’s what he’d done when Prentiss attacked.

“Hi, Tim,” Sonja said as she leaned over her desk, happy to chat him up, giving Jon the opportunity to root around into the new arrivals.

Tim was good at distracting people Jon found difficult to deal with. The less human interaction he got this week, the better. Bringing Tim along was only partially strategic, though. While he buttered up Sonja, Jon could hoist a wide roll of paper under his arm without much of her interference. And the roll was far too heavy for his small frame, so he needed Tim’s help carrying the thing down to the archive.

They spread it out across the long mahogany worktable. It was quite obviously a map: custom made, long, hand drawn, spanning from the Mediterranean Sea to Bangladesh. The countries at the edges of the paper seemed unimportant enough to leave them vague, as well as the major cities, which gave it the impression that the map was unfinished or made in a rush. The paper was yellowed and should have crumbled when they unrolled it, but, as was usual within the confines of his hoard, Jon did not like to have information destroyed, so the paper’s fragile form held steadfast as he brushed it over, not caring to be careful as he placed heavy books on the corners to keep it in place.

Like magic, the paper evened out. As Jon stood over it, he quickly determined its purpose, and for the second time that week Jon’s heart sank to his feet.

“Oh, migration patterns,” Tim remarked, his finger following the arrows along the shores and cities.

“Yes,” Jon confirmed.

There was no map legend to indicate whose migration it supposedly documented, and no further notations to give hints. This spurred Tim and Sasha into an animated conversation, barebones as the details were. Martin joined them as they discussed, touching the paper with curiosity, noting little specks of blood in the texture of it. “Wonder what’s arcane about it.”

Jon could do little but stare, frigid like a statue as his assistants seated themselves around him. He tracked the meandering lines from west to east and back, furrowing his brows, covering his mouth with his hand to stop the corners from twitching and hiding the wrought grimace that pulled his expression.

“Jon?”

Martin’s voice was soft, breaking through Jon’s haze, the first to notice Jon’s silence, though it was a silly thing to notice, because Jon was simply in thought and he thought he did a good job of hiding his nostalgia. It was like soft desert sand slipping through his claws. Held, but easily frisked away by the wind. The patterns familiar – the memories attached to them long forgotten.

“Jon, are you alright?”

The map could have been sent to him intentionally.

Although… No. Jon would not have another breakdown over her.

“Yes,” he answered, unable to tear his eyes away from the old map. “It’s just– I know this route.” He wrung his chin; his lips pressed tightly together.

“Oh. Want to tell us how?” Martin’s tone was careful, prepared for another freak-out, which Jon couldn’t blame him for. If Jon’s suspicions were correct, this map was another gift from Annabelle, though why she would send him such a thing was a mystery to him. What gain did she have by reminding him of his past? Of their shared past? Was there something he was missing? Was this some sort of convoluted hint? He scoffed – did she want to go on a road trip with him?

Jon was silent as the three of them waited for him to elaborate, but they did not press, familiar with how weak and _fragile_ Jon could get when reminded of the wrong things. Finally, his mind made up, Jon breathed in through his nose and exhaled fiercely, trying to keep his voice light as he spoke.

“My parents and I made this trip every year.”

“Oh!” Martin let out a delighted little exclamation, all his worry evaporated.

“Dragon migration patterns,” Sasha said, her eyes bright. “That’s so cool. I didn’t know people made these.”

“They don’t,” Jon refuted. “There are no patterns to our flight routes, and we are elusive enough that our territories are hard to pin down if we don’t have an obvious hoard. We don’t follow the seasons. Just fears. And considering most dragons try to eat any humans that try to pin them down as a zoology project it’s rather ambitious to even consider following us long enough. The researcher who stumbled upon us was very lucky.” Jon chuckled, “and very stubborn to have followed us for so long. This is near complete.”

“When was this?” Martin asked.

“I was two years old at the time the researcher found us, and he followed our annual journey for three years more before his passing.”

“What’s your family like?”

“What do you think, Martin?” Tim intercepted. Jon bristled at his tone, and a sour feeling overcame him at the implication. “They’re dragons.”

That stung. And Jon gaped for a moment before he snapped back just as snide. “And what does that mean to you, Tim? That they’re monsters? That they didn’t care about me? Or didn’t care enough about humans? You know we’re not all the same. We don’t all kill for the sake of killing. It was my parents who taught me to respect humans. And while we might not have the same morals as _humans_ , Tim, we can still _eat_ with respect- Or at least _try_ to consider that- I mean, they’re still-“

Jon cringed at his own words. Of course, a human wouldn’t see it that way, but it was too late to take it back now. Jon clenched his fist, a growl rising up in his throat, unable to form the words, because no matter how he spun it, he could not defend the things he knew his parents had done for him in order to survive. Jon towered over Tim; his teeth bared in a simile of a much worse situation the both of them once found themselves in.

Tim held up his hands defensively, leaning back into his chair. As if scared into submission. “Right! Okay, sorry. They’re- your parents were lovely.”

The sight of Tim forced Jon to calm his breathing.

“No.” Jon slumped down into a chair with a huff, resting one arm on the giant map. “You’re right.”

He couldn’t argue with Tim. He didn’t know his parents, not really. He could hardly remember them at all. He didn’t really know what they were like – who they had been. This was the first time in years since he thought of his parents.

With hard eyes, Jon looked at the lines of the route. It had been created from the notes of a human’s perspective, with limited understanding of why they travelled the route they travelled. It had missing pieces: tracks the human hadn’t been able to follow, and a linearity that ignored why dragons went where they went – to feed, but sometimes storms brought them off-course. It missed nuance and explanations but was straightforward enough that any human could understand through what countries the dragons had travelled. Jon ought to breach any topic about dragons with his assistants like that: put it into their perspective. Even if sometimes, it made him exhausted.

“We’re monsters,” he said rather defeatedly. “We’re Beholdings. We go wherever there is calamity. We passed through the domains of other dragons, dragging our observer behind us as we submitted him to the terrors of the world. Savouring the taste. Marinated in misery. More for us to behold, and more for us to eat.”

With his long history of assistants, Jon had ended up exactly like them. Feigning sympathy. Feigning docility. Guiding humans towards their death all the same. His head fell into his hand, and he rubbed his fingers around his eyes at that horrible realisation.

Jon was quiet for a moment, unsure how to proceed whilst assessing his assistants’ reaction, and he licked his lips at how palpable their surprise was. 

“Yeah. That’s kind of what I meant.” Tim didn’t make eye contact, but in a way that reminded Jon of himself when he knew he had said something stupid. Or at least, Jon secretly hoped Tim felt a little bit stupid for insulting his late parents. Had either Tim or Jon been proper dragons, Jon would’ve bit him for his remark, or made him fly off so they wouldn’t have to deal with each other. In that regard, dragons were much more sensible than humans, because Tim stubbornly remained seated on his chair.

“Guys, I’m sure dragon families are much more nuanced than that. You think Jon would’ve been who he is if dragons lacked a bit more discrepancy?” Sasha leaned forwards, disregarding the friction that hung between Jon and Tim like a bad theory. “I think it’s proper interesting. I wanna know how family dynamics work for dragons, if you don’t mind me asking. What was the trip like? Have you travelled a lot since?”

After passing a quick glance in Tim’s direction, Martin looked equally curious. “Yeah,” he supplied. “It can’t have all been that bad.”

Jon flustered, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, feeling oddly raw at their attention. It wasn’t that he didn’t want them to know about his past or his parents, but the map, their inquiring eyes, his own vague recollection of his parents: it felt like he had a wound that was being rubbed, softly reopening, unexpectedly vulnerable. He didn’t know how much it would bleed if he tore at it himself.

“No. For me, it wasn’t. At least for a little while.”

Jon supposed he could give them a story.

“Both my parents were collectors,” he began. “My mother gathered nightmares, and my father hoarded books just like my grandmother. My parents and I stayed with her hoard for the first two years of my life, but it became apparent very quickly that I was the type of child who could not sit still. I was impatient and would much rather go out and see the world for myself than passively being fed information by my parents. At that point, I had never actually seen a human yet, so they were somewhat of a curiosity to me. I only ever saw them in the dreams my mother shared with me. But even there, I still only observed them from far up above, far removed from their real lives as my mother haunted their dreams.

“Humans were so curious. To me, their fears felt utterly alien, as the feeling of being watched had only comforted me all my life. I simply fed on their suffering without truly knowing the full scope of what it was I fed on. But my parents were the silent types of Beholding, only addressing the world when it was necessary, and at that point I had not yet learned to speak and question what I saw, much less understand, so all I could do was wander around the library looking for a way out. I couldn’t make it very far, though, as I was still very small. My parents usually took me between their teeth whenever I wandered off too far. Once I got a little older and they deemed my flying well enough, we went on our first trip. We hardly stayed on the ground at all, except to rest.”

Jon let out a little sigh and stood up, reaching over the map to point at the gulf of Kutch, west of India on his right. Sasha took his moment of silence to intercept, “Baby Jon’s vacay.”

He smiled at the comparison. “Very long holidays, yes. And very busy. Took us about eight months every year? From Bournemouth where we lived and where my grandmother housed her library all the way to the shores of Gujarat where my mother was born. We stopped frequently. I could barely make it over the Channel those first couple of years with how small I still was. But whenever my wings grew too tired my father would take me up his shoulders, and from up there, safely nestled behind his dorsal scales, I watched the world for hours as he flew, clutching him tightly so I wouldn’t fall down as the wind blew across my snout. I don’t remember much of my parents, but I think I loved him most when he did that.

“But the point of the journey was for me to grow. We ate the eyes out of cadavers whenever we found them. We flew over burial sites where trespassing creatures sank into the maws of wyrms that lay buried in the earth. We watched and did nothing as buildings burned and the heat warmed our scales. We sought out misfortune wherever we went. But before I was strong enough to see humans up close, my parents still fed me, and I licked the fear from their eyes and hid under their wings until I was old enough.”

“Despite our inherent cruelty,” Jon said finally, bringing the crux of his story to a close, “they were good parents.”

Sasha and Martin visibly melted.

“Sounds like,” Martin said, who had no frame of reference for healthy dragon families. Tim didn’t look convinced, but that was fine. The fact that he had sat through his story at all told Jon he’d wanted to learn. Sasha hung from his lips, drinking in every word.

“And the rest of the journey?” Sasha said. His assistants eyed him, clearly wanting more from his childhood adventures.

Supposing he could continue the story about his journey, Jon tapped Egypt on the map.

“Well, I suppose this is where the real story started. It’s a bit stereotypical in my opinion that the researcher sought out dragons in Alexandria, but to his credit he did actually find Beholdings there. The ruins of the library marked the halfway point of our journey, and this is where we ended up resting the most, as it had an established tower of dragons. And lay near the coast, which my parents liked.”

“Huh,” Tim said, and murmured, “guess those rumours are true then.”

Jon nodded.

“So that guy just hung around some ruins until dragons came along?” Sasha remarked.

“Yes. Somewhat. He was Jurgen Leitner’s assistant. He had given him the task of trading knowledge for books, whatever the cost that task might’ve been. But instead his assistant found my parents and I.”

“Jurgen Leitner?” Martin said. “The book guy, Jurgen Leitner?”

“Yes.”

Martin nodded as if it all fell into place. “So that’s where he got them all from.”

“Not quite. The librarians prefer terrible knowledge. Either he shared something horrible with them in return for one of their books, or he would give them one from Leitner’s collection and have something awful burned into his mind as a reward.”

“Yikes,” the three of them more or less replied, and Jon agreed that there was little reward to find in that.

“But before he had the chance to dig through the ruins properly, he stumbled upon us. I only found out years later that he was Leitner’s assistant, as I didn’t understand the significance behind his name when I was younger.”

It was a dangerous thing to keep notes on a dragon, especially with how extensively surveyed Jon and his parents were. Martin had noticed blood on the paper. Jon wondered if it meant anything. It made very little sense that the map got made at all, because as far as Jon knew, those notes had never made it out of-

Jon perked up, a vacant look in his eyes. He absentmindedly patted his pocket, feeling the shape of Annabelle’s package solid under his palm right where he left it. No longer able to ignore it, Jon pulled it out, finally, and he looked at the brown paper for a moment with wonderment in his eyes. She had left it there for him. It had the same colour as his hair and his hide. When he angled it in his hand, he even found it had the same purple sheen as his scales. A gift made for him, wrapped up neatly with a silk ribbon, immaculate.

“It was through him that I met Annabelle,” he added airily. “I wonder if we would’ve met at all if it wasn’t for him.”

“Oh, geesh,” Martin sighed despondent. “She sent the map too, then?”

Immediately, the assistants pulled away from the table with a disconcerted shuffle.

“I believe so.”

Jon wasn’t paying attention to their reactions. A letter came attached with the package, previously unnoticed and coloured the same brown as the rest, which was likely not undeliberate. Sasha looked up at Jon, “You really want to open that now?”

Jon really did. He had already pulled the string free from the letter, angling the package in his hand, and pulled his finger along its ridge to rip it open.

“Jon?”

A white card sat inside of it. It had a black cartoon spider on its front with a jaunty expression sitting contentedly in its web. A text bubble read: ‘Happy Birthday!’.

“Oh!” Jon’s surprise was earnest. “Right.”

He turned over the card, ignoring the stares of his assistants. Rather, the prickling of their anticipation encouraged him as he read.

“Dear Jon,” he began. It was not written in anyone’s handwriting he recognized, though the tone was patronizing enough to guess its author. “We’ve had our fun over the years, haven’t we? I hope this gift brings back many fond memories. I know it did for me. I’ve had it in my possession for years, but it always missed the accompanying piece I knew still lay rolled up somewhere hidden in whatever dusty old library conjured it. And what do you know? Found it just in time. Don’t worry. I haven’t enchanted either item. You may check for yourself. However, I think it’d be best to not let your assistants handle my second gift to you. I’m sure you’ll find out about its properties soon enough. It’s the main piece, after all. I hope it will be of use.

“So, Happy two-hundredth-and-thirtieth birthday, Jon. Could you not kill any more of my spiders? We are simply checking in, after all.”

The corners of Jon’s mouth had taken on a patronizing grin as the voice of Annabelle seeped into his mouth, but as soon as he read the last word out loud, that smile sank like a brick.

“Oh, what the hell,” came from Martin.

“Jesus,” from Tim.

“Was it your birthday when she visited the other day?” Sasha said.

“Oh, uhm. No.” Jon looked up at his assistant’s worried faces. Despite everything, his eyebrows were raised, feeling oddly relaxed. It all made a little bit more sense to him now. “It’s today.”

They perked up at that and he ignored an awkward round of heartfelt but confused congratulations. His curiosity hadn’t left him yet and Jon turned the package over in his hand, anticipating its contents.

“You’re sure that’s safe to open?” Tim said, arms crossed.

“No!” Jon laughed against all instincts. “I’m not entirely sure it is!”

“Can you fill us in?” Sasha said. “I thought you were scared of Annabelle?”

Jon stifled a giggle. “Yes. I’m sorry. God. You’re right. I really was worried she’d take one of you. Or kill you. Yes, that was my main worry. I don’t want you to die. Rather stupid. I mean – I acted rather stupid. I can _see_ her web. Though she made me ignore this one until it was my actual birthday, I suppose. And she still might be trying to kill us with this–”

While he spoke, his fingers slid over the ribbon that kept it knotted together. He pulled a string, and it slid deftly away like a proper present. Or well-cooked meat off of bone. It revealed a thick but hand-sized notebook underneath, covered in old lace webbing which he tore off and stuffed into his mouth. If Jon was able to see Annabelle’s magic as a human, it probably wasn’t of much use to its Weavers. And food was always an appreciated birthday gift.

“Er, not helping, Jon!” Martin said, peering at him like Annabelle could creep out from the pages any moment. “Is that a Leitner?”

Still chewing, Jon nodded. The cover read, ‘Gregory Todd’s journal, a journey with dragons’. He did not find Leitner’s epigraph inside its cover, but that wasn’t too strange. Gregory had held the book when he went missing, led towards the last dragon domain he would ever document.

“I think I understand,” Jon said, brushing through the pages. His eyes widened at all the information rushing back at him like a tidal wave: fond memories long forgotten, images he ought to have treasured, monsters he’d seen tall as his parents and then some. “Gregory Todd – that was his name. He took extensive notes of us, detailing his journey alongside us. He observed us so much that our magic seeped into his notebook, worthy to be part of Leitner’s collection.”

“Wait, that means-” Sasha’s brows shot up in realization. “Jon. That’s _your_ Leitner.”

“Yes,” Jon said, flipping slowly through the book. “So many details. Where we slept, the hoards we came across. Even noting what little conversations my parents held with each other. Too many details.” He looked frantically through the pages, his eyes burning with need like they usually couldn’t in his human form. “He followed us for so long, put so much Beholding into his work. It never actually joined Leitner’s library, of course, because Gregory walked right into Annabelle’s cave at the end. This is-”

Deeply absorbed into his gift as he was, Jon didn’t notice his assistants coming closer to peek over his shoulder and into the pages, and he came to mind just in time to yank the book from Martin’s reaching hand. “Martin! Are you mad?”

Martin looked as if burned. “But you’re touching it too!”

“That’s because it’s _mine_. I can withstand the magic in these books. I have no idea what it’ll do to humans when they touch it.”

“Can’t you find out?” Sasha asked.

“I’m still looking,” he answered agitatedly, continuing to flip through the book. “I’ll properly investigate when I’ve got my eyes-”

“Hey, are those illustrations?” Sasha ignored him and pointed out when he flipped past pages without any writing on them. He stilled on one such page, his heart fluttering at what he saw.

“Oh,” Jon breathed. “My mother.”

Jon’s world went very quiet then. She was drawn in pencil. Thin but rough lines shaped into a long-necked dragon with her head held high, soaring into the sky for all the world to see the eyes she held in the membrane of her wings. She was shaded like a shadow against the sun, but the artist carefully left the white of her eyes blank. Thin pinpricks of pupils stared up at Jon from the dark mass around it.

“She’s got your wings,” Martin remarked much in the same line of thought as Jon. “Or, I mean, you’ve got hers.”

Jon smiled fondly at the drawings, though he couldn’t help the forlorn feeling settling in his chest. “I forgot how beautiful her eyes were.”

Privately, Martin thought much the same about Jon’s.

“This is a pretty good gift, isn’t it?” Martin asked softly, as if any harsher commentary would tear the peace from Jon’s face.

Jon nodded.

“I thought you and Annabelle hated each other,” Sasha said, who had no qualms about breaking Jon’s composure for an explanation.

“I didn’t always hate her,” Jon said. “And I know the feeling isn’t mutual. We used to be friends. But that was before I properly understood what we were to each other.”

“And what was that?” Tim cut in; his voice low.

It was difficult to talk about Annabelle. She scared Jon, plain and simple, and he did not want that fear to bleed out of him and into his assistants.

Jon snapped the book shut and took place on his chair.

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” Martin said, shooting a pointed look in Tim’s direction, who shrugged.

“No,” Jon replied. “It’s fine.”

As he placed his hand on the map with the Leitner in his other, he felt the prickling of knowledge singe through his fingers, tracing the lines of the map. It made his eyes tinge, like his own serpentine tongue licking the fear off his parents’ eyes as they fed him the fears they had collected for him. Jon did not want to think about what that meant, and instead told them about Annabelle.

“Dragons play with each other from a young age. We have to expand the range of our fear, see the true potential of our dread powers. Even the Lonely socialize with other dragons sometimes, like the Desolation or the Vast. After all, there’s isolation in destruction and insignificance, and whether you use the cold deep to make humans feel alone or the destruction of fire – well, it’s the outcome that matters in the end.

“I was a nosey brat though, sticking my snout into everybody’s business, which made me not very liked by other fledglings. I once very bravely asked an older Flesh juvenile what’s so fun about bones. Hah. Learned that lesson. I could never properly fight back once provoked, so I wasn’t a fun sparring partner either. Other dragons often bit me for never properly participating in their games, because I only watched and reaped the rewards afterwards, in their eyes not having done anything to have earned it. My incessant need to ask questions completely undermined the secrecy that many fears depended on to be effective. I think I got on with Terminuses well enough, but they were usually rather solemn even for me. Not to mention a bit simple minded for the adventures I wanted to go on. Uhm, don’t tell Georgie I said that. Point is, I was rather isolated, apart from the occasional Beholding we came across.

“I met Annabelle when I watched Gregory Todd disappear into the mouth of her cave when I was five years old. My mother stood behind me, close enough to help me if something went wrong, but far away enough that it left me the sole spectator for the first time in my life. I watched Gregory disappear into the claws of a much larger beast than I was, and from that day forwards, I began to truly understand the sort of creature I was.

“My parents passed away when I was very young. My father years before the final page of Gregory’s notebook was written, and my mother shortly after. I was alone for a long, long while after that. My grandmother cared for me well enough, but she was old, more akin to a statue than a guardian. She didn’t want me to go out, preferring I stay within the safety of her hoard, but there was nothing for me there, just her mountains of mundane books she hadn’t cared about for decades and whose supply seemed to diminish the longer I looked for something that satisfied me. She tried to give me what I needed, but since I got so used to traveling from place to place, I thought I didn’t need her safety. Food is food, and she fed me well enough, but my hoard wasn’t my own, and when I did manage to sneak out to play with Annabelle or watch humans from up close, she could hardly bring her granite body to bring me back.

“So, one day I just. Left. I believe I didn’t even pack any books I still liked or trinkets I’d hoarded for myself. I went to Annabelle, and for the next couple of decades, I followed her through whatever story she could weave for me. We… We hunted together. She gave me stories. I watched her victims move through her plot. She pulled strings around my fangs and taught me to compel humans, and I taught her where- who to find; who to follow; who would fit her fears the best. I taught her that fear and misery taste better when there’s someone watching. Someone left behind. A survivor who could pass on the story. Those were- are my favourites. Guilt is an addictive taste.

“I still didn’t have a home, though. Annabelle had her family she could go back to. Large, as Spiders lay eggs by the dozen, with extended family turning the nest into one giant conglomeration of Weavers. She had somewhere to go at the end of the day. I simply wandered, something I’d done all my life and was accustomed to. But it’s a lot worse when there’s no comfort in the places you’re heading. Nothing secure.”

As Jon spoke, one hand on the book, the other on the map, his assistants watched in amazement as slivers of Jon’s Beholding magic shaped little figurines over the map, illustrating his journey across the ocean and mountains and the forests. Jon wanted to stop as soon as he noticed the wide eyed stares of his assistants, but it was hard to pull away from a story once he got to speaking, so their eyes burned as they watched a trio of dragons take to the sky, their forms still except for the occasional flapping of their large wings and the frantic beating of the smaller one under them. His parents dropped off soon, his father falling out of the sky first, and his mother disappearing into nothingness, leaving Jon to meander towards his grandmother’s home in Bournemouth where she greeted him with a lick between the eyes before his weary head fell against her solid legs. A black shadow with too many limbs joined a later scene, almost innocent in her playfulness with Jon as human figurines staggered towards dark houses.

Jon’s heart beat in his chest as his assistants watched him, their expressions painfully human as their compassion burned holes in his skin, digging around for the scaled armour he wasn’t wearing. It was rare that humans looked at Jon like that, and it stung, but he could not stop his story until he’d said what he wanted to say, so he continued.

“I believe I was around nine years old when I left home, but I might’ve been younger. Far too young for a dragon child to go out on his own, really. I should have gritted my teeth and kept to my grandmother’s hoard. I should have been more understanding of her situation.

“Annabelle offered me a place with her family. They lived nearby, settled in an old abandoned house they had hollowed out and nested in. I was right behind her to take her up on her offer. I almost pulled through with it. Almost. But then the door of the house opened, and I saw her father’s claws take hold of the door, and suddenly I was every single victim I had seen wander through that doorway, helpless and small.

“I bolted. My grandmother was furious when I came shuffling home after three years, but at that point her fury was a familiar comfort I desperately needed. I decided I was much more content staying with her hoard. She was safe, even if it was boring.

“I haven’t seen Annabelle since. Apart from her puppets, that is.”

The magic figurines dissipated like smoke after Jon’s last breath. Martin, Sasha, and Tim immediately rubbed their red eyes raw.

Jon sprung into alertness. “Oh, god, are you alright?” he said a tad panicked, slipping the book in his pocket and hovering his hands uselessly before them.

“It’s fading, I think,” Sasha said. Martin and Tim agreed.

“More of an itch,” Tim said, blinking furiously, his eyes red and tear streaked. He rubbed his hands over his face. “Christ. Could’ve used a warning.”

After a round of apologies from Jon, they concluded that it was probably the Leitner who’d set it off. Jon, like he always did with the books, promised to keep it out of their reach. Whether its powers had been activated through his voice or simply because he held it close to the map, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t keen to further test its abilities with his assistants nearby.

“God, this is embarrassing,” Sasha said as her and Martin wiped the last tears off their cheeks.

“I guess we’re even, then,” Jon said, and Sasha groaned.

Jon rolled up the map, just in case, keeping it secure between two piles of books instead of returning it to storage, so he could appraise it later.

As he did this, Martin came up to him. “Jon.” His hand was on Jon’s arm, after tentatively reaching out like Jon had scales and Martin wasn’t sure if he was allowed to touch them. Jon let him, though his shoulders tensed, feeling raw. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve never told anyone this,” Jon replied, averting Martin’s gaze. “Georgie knows the gist of it, amongst some others, but I’ve never put it in this many words before.”

Martin gave him a moment before he was ready to look him in the eyes again. “Did it feel good to let it all out?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Good. Annabelle seems like a real pain.”

Jon didn’t have the energy to chuckle at that, giving him a wry smile instead.

“Gives good gifts though. Apart from the itching, that hologram was beautiful.”

Jon felt that the term ‘hologram’ lacked the wonderment with how they watched it. He supposed Martin was right, though. The illustrations in his Leitner were stiff, but to see his parents soaring the skies, their wings strong and protective – Jon very much wanted to hole up in his nest, his Leitner close by so he could watch them fly at his side again.

“You don’t feel any different?” Jon said.

“Just a bit sad, I guess,” Martin admitted. “Maybe the Leitner is more of a, uhm, more of an emotional one. Like a sad Leitner.”

“Like a sad Leitner,” Jon repeated deadpan.

“Instead of a horror Leitner!” Martin felt clearly out of his depth.

Jon eyed him amused, supressing a chuckle. “There’s no emotional Leitners, Martin. They’re magic bundles of horror. There are terrible things in here I’m not sure you want to know about.”

“Right! No, I don’t. Of course. No, not really. You’re right. I’ve read some statements, hah.”

Jon kept up his smile, seeing Martin flounder around his words.

There was someone else who very much would like to see the Leitner, however, and as that thought crossed Jon’s mind, his smile faltered. Much like the statement of Jane Prentiss – which gave away how compatible she was with the Crawling Rot – Jon was not keen to share the Beholding Leitner, detailed, un-curated, and brimming with his magic, with Elias.

Jon’s hand pressed firm over the book in his pocket. If Annabelle could keep a secret, so could he.

Baby dragon jon mouse doodle:


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chapter about... Food? Bonding? Both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got away from me, and I don't think I put a single thing in here that I initially had notes for. Maybe next chapter.... Sorry for the long time between updates! Here's a new chapter from ur favourite badly paced fanfic. Genuinely upset at how long this is becoming.

The Archives, Martin had come to learn, bounced back whether its inhabitants were emotionally ready for it or not. It was as if the place itself couldn’t settle for monotony and invited whirlwinds of terror to feed it and its denizen alike – the scars on Martin’s skin being clear physical indicators of that. But despite the wyrms, the rotting ladies, the minor kidnapping, they kept their heads up. Jon painstakingly enough as well.

“It’s a dark pit,” Tim had said once, back when his rage and fear still coloured his strained relationship with Jon. “This place wants to eat us alive, and we walk straight into it. Day after bleeding day.”

Martin couldn’t remember replying to that. Maybe, deep down he believed that’s what it wanted. But Tim had come around eventually anyway and Martin never fully agreed with him in the first place, even if Jon’s eyes on him made the hairs on his neck stand up straight. Jon didn’t eat humans. Just statements, tea, and – with great reluctance – sandwiches from the cafeteria. If anything, it was the Archive that was being eaten, its assistants feeding it the statements per their sorting and filing. Whatever misfortune befell the Archives was sorted and indexed, tucked away and compartmentalized.

Tim had bounced back, though not without a few cracks. Sasha had bounced back, smiling as if getting kidnapped and rescued was as much of an adventure as it was in films. And Martin… Well, Martin got on just fine. He wasn’t the source of attention most of the time, and he felt he couldn’t complain when Jon had the hardest time of all, even if he didn’t show it, and if there was something to be done to make his situation more comfortable, Martin would be there to give him whatever he needed. Martin knew how to take care of people, so that’s what he did. One tea mug at a time.

Jon wasn’t sitting behind his desk when Martin opened his door. Martin’s head swivelled from side to side as he looked for the man – or dragon – as he was sure he’d last seen Jon disappear into his office. He’d gotten that weird look in his eye when he pocketed the book, the Leitner, which told Martin he probably intended to hole up for the rest of the day to study it, so he must be tucked away somewhere between his piles of work.

“Ah. Right here, Martin.”

Jon’s serpentine head popped out behind a wall of boxes, folders, and books, scattering files as he breached the surface of his research pile. Martin couldn’t help but smile at the sight, seeing Jon literally buried in the little nest he’d created.

He lifted the tea mug in greeting. “Hi, Jon.”

Jon’s eyes were slitted, but blew wide when they zoned in on Martin. Or rather, the box of new files and freshly recorded tapes he carried under his left arm. Jon shook his head and stood up, letting the rest of the paper slip off his wings and down his back before he deftly jumped over the wall of boxes, landing with a dull thud on his feet. His pupils made him look rather adorable, and Martin kept up an easy smile as Jon trotted over to him, nose to the ground. Jon was obviously trying to hide the fact he wanted to sniff him out, which Martin wouldn’t mind even if he was obvious about it. But Jon was polite. Sniffing Martin and Tim and Sasha was something he only did when he thought he was being sneaky about it – not that he was particularly good at it, and Martin was self conscious enough about himself that he picked up whenever Jon’s attention was redirected towards him. It was a weird quirk, but harmless. And after a while the little twitching of his nostrils were incredibly cute; the attention on Martin flattering.

Those big eyes looked up at Martin as he came to stand in front of him. They prickled his skin in a way he’d come to know from Jon. Very seen. Not entirely pleasant, but friendly. Peering at Martin as if he waited for him to say something interesting. Because Jon was always interested. And his piercing yellow and brown eyes made Martin want to say things worth saying.

It was nerve wracking.

“Lunch time! Ahaha.”

“Yes,” Jon said quickly and leaned into the box. “Right on time.”

Martin was never sure how to react when Jon flicked his tongue at statements (and very rarely: Martin), so when it poked out before rapidly slipping back between his lips, Martin pretended not to notice out of politeness. Jon’s head was nearly dug into the box, far more interested in his actual food than the tea Martin brought him, which made a thought cross his mind that he’d been wondering about for a little while now.

“You don’t have to drink the tea if you don’t want to,” Martin said.

Jon cocked his head. “But I want to.”

“But it’s not really filling, is it? Doesn’t exactly taste like fear?”

Jon was silent for a moment. “No…” he replied slowly.

Jon reclined and began to stand on his hind legs, near full height, and Martin watched in awe as he always did. Jon reached out with his sharp hands. Martin let the weight leave his side as Jon took the files out of his grasp. He looked rather cute, clutching the box in his short but sturdy arms like a prize, his head dipping slightly.

He turned around and placed the box on his desk. His fantastically impressive wings moved deftly behind him as he did so, the dull light of the office catching the purple sheen of his scales. Like always, he kept them closed, hiding away the quite frankly terrible eyes nestled in them.

“I mean, you don’t seem to enjoy human food,” Martin clarified.

Jon dropped down on all fours. “Ah, well. That’s because of… Something different. Look, it’s not that I hate human food, but it doesn’t feel like it fills me as much.” Jon gestured with his claw-hand as the voice he used for heated discussions slipped in. “Fears and rye bread aren’t exactly comparable, taste wise. And generally it comes across as a bit of a downgrade when I switch from the metaphysical to physical. I find it simply not as good.”

Despite this, Jon stood hunched before him, holding out his padded hand for Martin to give him the mug. Jon took it gingerly, careful not to graze Martin’s skin with his hardened black nails, and clutched it to his chest. “But uhm, I do like your tea, Martin. It doesn’t taste like fears, no. But it does taste like you.”

“O-oh!” Martin felt his ears going red, though he rather hoped they weren’t, and Martin took a hot second to process what Jon just said. Jon said weird things often, so he probably meant nothing by it, probably, maybe. “Uhm. Okay. You mean, like– what do you mean exactly?”

Jon scratched his collarbone similarly to when he was a nervous human. “Right. How do I explain this. You’re part of the hoard? So whatever you bring me, it’s good? It’s just tea. Doesn’t have anything to do with statements or Beholdings or fears specifically and it doesn’t actually feed me as such... But it’s good to me, because it reminds me of you?”

Martin’s eyebrows shot up, a hint of a smile creeping in. “Oohhh! Like an offering?”

Jon almost looked relieved at that. “Yes. Like an offering, sort of. Like it reinforces your connection to the Archives.”

Martin had never considered what the Archives itself might be, other than Jon’s home. A dragon’s home. A hoard. A big nest of what was practically food to Jon. The sentence swirled in Martin’s head. _Reinforces your connection to the Archives._ As if something else bound Martin to the place other than an employment contract.

“And... What does that mean?” he said warily.

Jon’s expression was hard to read when he didn’t look human, but when Martin tensed up Jon leaned towards him as if he were concerned. “It’s purely social.” Jon said. "Its not- I'm not keeping you here. Or the Archives are, I mean. It's just. You're part of it. And that's good for me.”

“R-R-Right,” Martin drawled as a knot of tension bled out from his chest. It was probably like making tea for Sasha and Tim. Normal stuff. Or maybe an off-centre type of normal when it came to Jon. Normal with a side of intricate dragon feelings attached. “Like my smell?”

Jon's arms sagged. “Christ, did Tim tell you I like your smell?” Jon nearly scoffed, bringing his padded hand to his forehead, which looked odd because of how long his neck was. “I’ll have him peeled. Yes. It's somewhat like your smell. It makes me feel like you belong here and aren’t simply an intruding human in my archives. Your scent helps with that. As do your offerings. And the statements and supplemental research. You guys have been good to me. And-” Jon sighed. “I like your tea, Martin. It’s a little bit of you.”

Martin didn’t know what face to pull at that, so he settled for beet red. “Happy to help.”

“And really, I’m sorry about the uhm, smelling.”

“That’s alright. Just dragon instincts, I suppose.”

“Quite.” Jon nursed the mug to his chest and flicked his tongue into his tea, glancing to the side to avoid looking at Martin.

“I’d rather you tell me I smell good than bad, hah.”

Jon’s perpetually sour face broke. He wrinkled his snout, revealing the tips of his sharp teeth. A dragon smile, Martin had come to learn. The scrunch in his nose similar to the one on Jon’s human face, though rare as it was. Carefree and sweet.

“I really don’t think that’s something you should say to a dragon, Martin.”

* * *

Jon found Sasha tucked into a corner deep into the Archives, further away from their more communal work place at the table, benched by two thick tomes and her laptop balanced on her knees. She had brought a lamp over from the more habitable spots around the Archives, crafting a little research nest of her own, seating herself away from the others whenever she needer her space.

Jon’s short but hard nails tapped on the old wooden floors, alerting her to his presence. He didn’t like to scare his assistants, if only because the spikes of fear made him lick his lips, which he sensed made them nervous. But often they could already feel him coming, his power tickling their senses.

Sasha looked up briefly in recognition as Jon trotted over to her with his own laptop between his teeth. As he dropped it on the tome next to her, she smiled and put away hers.

“Trouble with your internet again?”

“No. It’s the whole bloody thing again. I thought they fixed it with magic last time I brought it to IT.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Sasha reached for his laptop. When she opened it she frowned, met by a familiar blue screen. An audio bar with the title of a recently recorded non-dragon related statement glitched in and out occasionally, though it thankfully did not blast Jon’s draconic growls into her ears this time around. “I told you you’ve got to wear your coat when you do computer stuff. Digital doesn’t like dragons.”

“The feeling’s mutual,” Jon muttered with disdain, resisting the urge to flare his wings under his tidy white shirt. “Can’t you use the uh, what’s it called? Divination?”

She tried some buttons. “I only use defence magic. And it’s not like I’m any good at it. I couldn’t even get those co2 spells to work that well, remember?”

Jon supposed that made sense. The two were wholly different types of magic. It wasn’t like Jon could breathe fire despite falling under the same category of magical creature as Desolations, so the same must be true for humans. “I’m sure there’s a difference in using divination and defence magic,” he said, feeling a tad out of his league with human sorcery.

“Oh, shush. You think it’s all fake anyway.” Seeing no imminent way to fix the problem, she sighed and put the laptop away. Jon followed her movements with annoyance since he very much needed it today.

“That’s not true. Humans have, uhm. Humans are entitled to their own classifications.”

“Liar. You think your dragon system is the only right one. You think you’re above all of us.”

“That’s because we-” Jon held his tongue before something insensitive slipped out. Their long discussed argument about the schools of magic wasn’t a fight either of them could win, nor did he want to continue it right now. But the smirk on Sasha’s face sparkled with intent, and Jon felt he’d already lost somehow.

“And I’m sure you’re way too good for cuddles as well.” She straightened out her legs and patted her knees in a clear invite.

Pride firmly intact, Jon said nothing as he laid his head on her lap.

Sasha, being an experienced cat owner, gave the best head scratches.

She cradled Jon’s horned head in the palm of her hand. It was solid, but with a surprising lightness to it, she had remarked the first time she was allowed this. Lavished and loved as she scratched between the narrow spaces of his horns where Jon had difficulty reaching but where she could easily dip between with her long slender fingers. He had given up being embarrassed by it months ago, as Sasha offered her clever hands with such ease and lack of judgement. Jon wondered if it weren’t for her he would have allowed his assistants to pet him at all.

It was different with Tim, though, Jon thought grimly. He still flinched whenever Jon skidded past him, but Jon had to remind himself that Tim was entitled to these reactions.

Putting those thoughts away, Jon pressed his snout against the crook of Sasha’s arm and couldn’t help but breathe in the scent of her, his chest rising and falling. Fresh clothes from yesterday’s laundry. Her own scent through the chemical burn of deodorant. The lingering sensation of cat hairs tickling his nostrils. Every part of it Sasha. All for him to indulge in because she let him.

“So,” Sasha said conversationally. “You eat eyeballs?”

“I uh, used to?”

“Gross.”

“It’s baby food,” he said. “It was filling when I was that small and a staple food before my powers developed properly.”

“Right, right. And now you eat words and dreams. Much more refined.”

“Yes,” he said matter of factly.

Sasha snorted.

“How does that even feel, eating the metaphysical?”

“I don’t know. How does-“ His mind blanked before he could accidentally compel her. He thought for a moment on how to word it, and what she might answer. “I think it’s like dreaming.”

“Uhh, hazy, confusing, and weird?”

He huffed a laugh at that. “No. It’s like– It makes me calm and rested. And excited at the same time. Sorts me out, in a way. Humans tell me about impossible things and I can’t do anything but getting swept along. Like a haze, yes.”

She hummed at that, stroking the scales around his jaw. He supressed a yawn. She had more on her mind. He could feel it, but she kept quiet and continued scratching his head, rolling the skin around his slitted eyes.

“You’re listed as thirty eight in the Institute’s records, by the way.”

“Good,” Jon replied lazily.

“You were twenty nine last year.”

“Hm. I believe it occasionally randomizes my date of birth. Keeps people from being suspicious.”

“Actually, your age is kind of why me and Tim started the bet on what you were. We were all like, ‘oh shit, something’s definitely up with our weird boss. What if he’s a wizard?’”

Jon hummed, not quite interested but letting Sasha speak as his mind drifted.

Sasha stilled for a moment, her arm slung over his neck behind his horns, her hand cradling Jon’s long snout with her thumb on his lips, idly stroking. His mouth twitched at the feather light touches in a half-hearted snarl. Her hand moved to his forehead, resting on the thick scales around his right two horns. She had once grabbed them at the base to test them out, and he’d heatedly asked her not to if she wasn’t intent on fighting him. He didn’t feel much like fighting now.

His breathing evened out, a dangerous sign of sleepiness. Sasha was a warm pillow of his favourite scent but he forced his eyes open lest he would fall asleep in front of her. It wasn’t proper. Sasha was proper.

He blinked. The next time he opened his eyes, he lay curled up against a book with no Sasha in sight.

* * *

“You know what this means, though?” Sasha began.

“What?” Jon replied.

“We have to celebrate!” When Jon looked at her puzzled, Sasha added, “It’s a milestone! Not many people can say they turned two hundred and thirty.”

He gave her a pointed look.

At the promise of a party, Tim perked up. “We should get drinks.”

“Yeah! Drinks!” Sasha agreed. “Unless you don’t drink?”

“I don’t hate it,” Jon said, still a bit caught off guard. “I’m assuming this is to be done in the archives? O-or in my flat?”

“Oh, sounds fantastic. Another get-together in the lair.” Tim’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “If I get tipsy I don’t want to look at your mural of gore photography.”

“I could clean up,” Jon replied defensively.

“Great!” Sasha ignored their banter. “How about we watch a movie? Since you never get our references. Martin, you’re coming too, right?”

“Oh! Uhm, yeah, sure.”

\--

“We’re watching a children’s movie?” Jon said sceptically.

“A really _good_ children’s movie,” Tim argued. “It’s cultural heritage.”

“ _And_ ,” Sasha drew out, taunting Jon with a self-important grin, “it’s got a dragon in it.”

Jon considered this information. “… Alright.”

\--

“So, he’s an ogre that thrives on fear?”

“No, no,” Sasha said. “He scares them because it’s all he’s ever been to them. A monster.”

“Right… I feel like this film was picked deliberately.”

“It’s the layers,” Sasha said knowingly.

“What?”

“You’ll see.”

* * *

Jon being enamoured with a children’s movie was a sight Martin never could have anticipated. He sat hunched over on his couch, his knees drawn up, the projector they’d loaned from the library putting a great green monster on the bare white wall of Jon’s flat, bumps and texture adding to the overall charm of the creature. Jon didn’t laugh at any of the pop culture references, criticized the historical and fantasy inaccuracies in great detail, especially when it came to ‘the Desolation’ depicted, ignored Sasha and Tim’s banter as they talked over the movie. All in all, Jon was completely enchanted; a strange sort of forlorn look in his eyes whenever the monster looked a little too in love with the princess.

“Oh,” Jon sighed, “it’s a tragedy. He won’t get the human.” But when the princess turned out to be an ogre too, Jon perked up in an instant. He had an adorable look on his face, having his expectations so harshly subverted, and martin took a sip from his soft drink trying to hide a blush and a laugh.

“I’m enjoying your reactions way too much,” Tim grinned, arm slung over the couch behind Sasha as Jon side-eyed him half-heartedly.

Throughout, Jon had an expression of deep calculation, discussing every single character choice, which admittedly didn’t elevate the movie watching experience for Martin. But it was nice to see him this relaxed, not focused on work. A rare sight Martin gladly stole glances of.

Later, as the dragon on screen terrorized the knights, Tim spoke up again. “You know, I really thought you’d be as big as that one.”

Jon frowned with annoyance, the effects of his birthday wine showing on his face. “I’ll never grow that tall.”

“Why not?” Martin asked. “I thought dragons kept on growing.”

“Ugh. All these misconceptions. Well-” Jon placed his glass on the coffee table with the force of someone who wasn’t aware of how much he’d had to drink, then stood up and raised his hand above his head. “My parents were this tall. The size of uhm, tall horses. Very long legged, but not huge. And I’ve been as small as I am for nearly a century, so unfortunately I think this is it.”

He plopped down on the couch, expression somewhere between yearning and furious. Martin settled on dumbfounded.

“Probably because you don’t get enough sunlight,” Sasha said. She put her elbow on the back of the couch and briefly looked around the cavernous room. “You should get heating lamps.”

Jon considered it for a moment, but then shook his head. “Won’t work. Lack of vitamin D has only been an issue in recent years, so it’s not like I’ll suddenly grow half a foot with more UV light. Plus, my metabolism speeds up when I’m too warm and I’m sure that’s not an issue we want to deal with.” The last bit dripped with bitterness as Jon hunched over himself, nursing his glass of wine.

Tim leaned forwards. “Christ, is that why the temps in the basement are so bloody horrid.” Jon moved his head as if to nod, but Tim continued, “It keeps you from killing us all.”

“I don’t kill people!”

“Guys, shut up!” Sasha shushed them. “He’s about to object.”

The big mean ogre ruined the wedding and a giant dragon ate the lord. Jon nodded far too sternly at that.

The movie ended with a kiss between the two ogres and a soft almost inaudible sigh from Jon, which was immediately followed up by annoyance as a pop song closed it off, which in his loudly shared opinion ruined the otherwise cathartic ending. They let the credits roll, empty bottles of beer and paper plates with smears of cake left on them spread out over the table and floor. A mess in his otherwise much neater apartment.

“It’s interesting how they keep the traditional fairy tale and medieval storytelling in mind whilst also subverting a lot of the tropes,” Jon said. Then Jon’s voice went quieter, “Bit of a stretch, though, all the interspecies romance.”

“Bigot,” Sasha bounced back.

Jon scowled. “It’s unrealistic. It’s two worlds converging. It works in films because they’re stories, but real life doesn’t work that way. Ogres, dragons, magical creatures, whatever; we hurt humans. They’re food to us. And in most cases, we outlive them. Even if their feelings are genuine, it’s a life of pain and loss in return for only the briefest moments of affection in lifespans of centuries. I wouldn’t want to wish it on any creature, human or otherwise.”

This was all said quite solemnly and when Jon caught Sasha’s eye he frowned and shook off his grave remarks, giving her a nonchalant shrug. “Bloody romantic, though.”

Martin’s heart ached a little at Jon’s words. In a way, he’d expected this reaction, even if it came from something as silly as a kids movie, though it sounded so ingenuine with how intently Jon had been staring at that impossible love on screen.

“I think it’s sweet.” Martin held his glass in his hands, his gut warm with wine. “To hold out hope. People can surprise you, is what I like to think. And they’ll always have their memories. And they made it work, even if he got grumpy and made mistakes. She loved him back. And without the princess, the dragon would’ve been all alone too, guarding nothing but old ruins.”

“Ah, there it is.” Tim lifted his beer bottle in good cheer. “Jonions have layers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not depicted: a heated debate between Sasha and Jon whether the parking lot Lancelot joke was supposed to be a pun on the word parking LOT (Sasha) or a subtle nod to Chrétien de Troye's arthurroman Lancelot, Knight of the Cart (Jon). (Or maybe both? (Martin))
> 
> AGGHH FANART!!!  
> Check these out I'm obsessed with them:  
> https://artandstarstuff.tumblr.com/post/632549666226159616/howdy-there-friends-im-back-on-my-bullshit-these  
> and  
> https://intergalactic-cruiseships.tumblr.com/post/635095108014981120/uhhh-so-i-said-id-post-this-like-a-month-ago-and  
> AND  
> https://theleanbean.tumblr.com/post/634634886911819776/all-i-can-think-about-is-slingerapen-s-dragon  
> Looks at dragon pictures all month and doesn't update<3


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